All centers follow similar child protection guidelines and are manned by qualified cadres.

The centers include seven in Riyadh province, seven in the Eastern Province, nine in Makkah province, three in Asir, two each in Tabuk, Madinah and the Northern Border Province and one each in Baha, Najran, Al-Jouf, Hail, Jazan and Qassim.

Using a national registry, the NFSP monitors cases of child molestation all over the Kingdom to help them keep up to date statistics of such incidents. Dr. Huda Al-Qattan is responsible for managing the registry with 24 other members of the NFSP.

According to a study presented by Saudi researcher Dr. Abdullah Ghanim at a seminar at Prince Naif Arab University for Security Sciences in Riyadh early last week, violence against children can lead them to exhibit delinquent behavior.

The abused child becomes less interested in values and ethics, the study said, adding that preventing children from watching television, not giving them their daily allowance, grounding them and psychologically harming them will cause children to become deviants when they grow up.

Ghanim said about 42 percent of child molesters are unemployed, 90 percent of them below 35 and 73 percent of them are not married.

He also said 77 percent of child abusers are not educated beyond intermediate level, 59 percent of them do not have a steady source of income and 49 percent are illiterate. He said 79 percent of mothers who are violent to their children are not educated at all.

Ghanim said 74 percent of abused children were born in urban environments. He added that 40 percent of the families only abuse them while the rest combine punishments with rewards.

According to the study, a fifth of parents who abuse children constantly fight with each other while a third are divorced.

The study said half of child abusers express their anger through badmouthing, kicking and hitting. It added that 74 percent of victims of violence suffered long term injuries such as deep wounds, fractures or disabilities.

The study said 78 percent of abusive parents believe in violence as a means to gain their rights while 56 percent do not believe in the law upholding their rights. It revealed 44 percent of child molesters served prison terms for various crimes.

Meanwhile, a statistical report recently released by the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) said there were 1,923 cases of violence against children in the past seven years.

It said the largest number of cases took place in 2006 (385) and then in 2010 (382).