Child Abuse Rampant in U.S. Army Families

2 August 2007

By Christina Hernandez

Washington: When a military parent is deployed to a combat zone, the children left behind might be plagued by more than frightening dreams and aching hearts.

A new study funded by the US Army found that child abuse and neglect was about 40 per cent higher in Army households during combat-related deployment than during non-deployment - and that civilian mothers are significantly more likely to mistreat their children than civilian fathers.

Researchers in North Carolina tracked nearly 1,800 Army families with at least one substantiated incident of "child maltreatment" through periods of deployment and non-deployment from 2001 to 2004.

The study, one of the first to examine child mistreatment in military families during deployment, found that the rate of physical abuse by female civilian parents was nearly twice as great during times of deployment. The rate of child neglect by civilian mothers was nearly four times higher during deployments.

However, the rate of child mistreatment was not significantly elevated for male civilian parents during deployment.

Deborah A. Gibbs, lead author of the study and a senior analyst with RTI International, an independent, nonprofit research institute in North Carolina, said the report was part of a larger study of family violence in the military.

The child mistreatment portion of the study emerged when many soldiers were being deployed to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gibbs said.

"It's easy to imagine that deployments would increase stress on the parent who is left behind," she said.

Gibbs said moderate to severe mistreatment of children was about 60 per cent higher during deployment. She said the ratings of moderate and severe mistreatment depend both on the risk of harm to the child and the actual harm. For example, mild abuse could be inappropriate discipline; severe abuse could be an action that results in significant injury.

Gibbs said the findings were generally consistent across age, rank and ethnic groups.

James E. McCarroll, director of the Family Violence Research Project in the Centre for the Study of Traumatic Stress at Uniform Services University of the Health Sciences in Maryland, said the study confirms other research, including his own.

The study's results did not surprise Michelle Joyner, director of communications for the Virginia-based National Military Family Association, a nonprofit advocacy group that focuses on quality of life issues for military families.