Combating Victimization

Abstract

It is well recognized that children every where in the world experience a host of victimizing incidents and acts. The question is what to do about it? This question is addressed by drawing upon the research and information presented throughout the volume. Many organizations and individuals are working hard to help those subjected to harm and to stop the harm from occurring, or at least reduce its incidence and recurrence. A typology of intervention efforts is presented that describes the two major focuses of these efforts – helping victims and preventing victimization. In turn, these are categorized as individual, organizational, and systemic programs. Individual programs aim to help individual victims or potential victims. Organizational efforts are designed to change aspects of organizations such as schools, governments, and so on that foster victimizing incidents and/or block any corrective efforts. Systemic programs are designed to foster fundamental changes that encourage general pervasive, persistent child victimizations that emanate from cultural beliefs or structural arrangements. Examples of each of the three approaches are presented and the relative merits of each assessed. A general assessment is presented of the dim prospects of effectively combating worldwide child victimization and what might be needed to meaningfully enhance the eradication of child victimization.