The Ministry of Social Affairs has set up a telephone hot line (Tel. 1919) to handle calls about family abuse. Its general administration for social protection aims to quickly resolve cases involving potential victims of abuse in collaboration with related departments.

Studies conducted by the ministry attributed the rise in the number of abuse cases to the increasing number of divorces and quarrels between parents as well as poverty and lack of awareness.

A solution recommended by the study is to remove an abused child from his or her family.

However, Princess Muneerah bint Abdul Rahman recommended after conducting a study on the issue that close coordination was needed between police and departments responsible for protecting children’s interests such as hospitals, schools and children’s homes.

She also stressed the need for regulations to help deal with such situations with clear definitions of what child abuse is.

“Islamic teachings basically banned violence to children, but if a child commits a serious crime he should be punished only in a controlled manner and after educating him,” legal and psychology consultant Saleh Al-Lehaidan told Al-Madinah daily.

He attributed incidents of child abuse to parents’ ignorance of the fundamentals of child care, absence of a role model in the family, issues related with divorce and reacting to a child’s mistake without thinking, among others.

Judge at a Qatif court Matraf Al-Bashar said issues of child abuse mostly come to the court as part of disputes between couples. The judge also noted that some fathers abused their daughters sexually.

“We have observed that drug addiction is sometimes caused by sexual harassment from fathers and in such cases child custody is granted to mothers,” he added.

Sociologist Adil Al-Malki, who demanded stern action against child abusers, said a victim of child abuse is influenced by such painful memories. “That is why we find most child abusers suffered abuse themselves in their childhoods,” Al-Malki said, adding that there should be a commission to take care of children.

An official source at the National Family Security Program said the program planned to set up child protection centers attached to health departments and prepare a nationwide electronic register to record all child abuse cases reported in hospitals and link them to a center at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh. The center will link up with related committees of the Social Affairs department, the source said.

The source added that 15 cases of suspected serious child violence were registered in hospitals in 2010. The records showed that 80 percent of them died because of severe head injuries. The explanations given by parents in these cases were identical. They said the children either fell from their beds or down the stairs. However, the source stressed the need to conduct detailed investigations into the cases.

Sociologist Al-Hanouf Al-Dossary said neglecting children’s education was a worse abuse than the physical kind. He said the failure of a father to obtain the mandatory national identity card for his son or daughter causes a lot of difficulties to the child, including being unable to take advantage of school education.

Meanwhile, member of Shoura Council Talal Bakri said the council passed a child abuse bill and submitted it for approval to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah three months ago.

The bill bans child labor besides guaranteeing a child’s right to national identity documents, compulsory education and protection from family abuse. He added that the council is currently considering a bill for the comprehensive protection of a family from physical, sexual, psychological and other forms of abuse.