Physical Abuse
Faith-based violence against children within a religious sect has become an area of growing interest and concern. Abuse of this type often takes the form of beatings, illegal confinement/neglect, near drowning or even murder under the belief that the child is possessed by Satan or evil spirits, allegedly practicing evil sorcery or witchcraft, or has committed some kind of sin that warrants such punishment. In 2012, the United Kingdom's Department for Children, Schools and Families instituted a new action plan to investigate and address the issue of faith-based abuse after several high profile murders occurred, such as the Kristy Bamu case. Over a term of 10 years, Scotland Yard had conducted 83 abuse investigations that had faith-based elements, and feared there were even more that go unreported.
Read more about this topic: Spiritual Abuse
Famous quotes containing the words physical and/or abuse:
“I have often been reproached with the aridity of my genius; a deficiency of imagination has been imputed to me as a crime; and the Pyrrhonism of my opinions has at all times rendered me notorious. Indeed, a strong relish for physical philosophy has, I fear, tinctured my mind with a very common error of this age—I mean the habit of referring occurrences, even the least susceptible of such reference, to the principles of that science.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry ...”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 22:22,23.