Introduction

Abstract

The status of children reflects the willingness of a society to invest in its future. However, every year millions of children throughout the world are subjected to unnecessary and preventable physical, emotional, psychological and sexual harm by others. These include such things as the use of children in armed combat, the exploitation of child labor, child abandonment, and trafficking. Data on the extent and distribution of the various harms experienced by the world’s young people are presented. Some of these harms are the consequences of various acts normally considered to be crimes under criminal law, such as murder or theft. But the world’s young are harmed also by a host of other actions usually deemed forms of child abuse, maltreatment, or neglect that may or may not fall under the criminal statutes of individual countries. Under international law, as well as the laws of virtually all societies, such acts should be considered forms of child victimization, conceptualized and understood in the same way we view crimes of any kind. Moreover, such actions ought to be thought of as forms of “government crime” insofar as the behavior resulting in this harm is either directly perpetrated by agents of governments, or is a result of governmental inaction, indifference, or incompetence. As such, worldwide efforts to combat child victimization must focus on not only helping victimized children but also address the underlying conditions that allow such behavior to emerge and continue throughout the world.