Child abuse checks should be carried out when animals cruelty reports are made, study says

Animal cruelty reports should trigger potential child abuse notifications, a study shows, which has revealed links between the two.

Reports of pet cruelty should automatically trigger notifications of potential child abuse, a study shows.

At present, potential animal cruelty reports are activated in South Australia when child abuse is identified, but not necessarily the other way around.

Flinders University Professor Damien Riggs, who led the research, said the study of 40 reports of child abuse showed it was often linked to animal cruelty in a household.

He said the physical and sexual abuse of children was about twice as likely to have occurred when authorities were called to inspect animal abuse.

Of the 40 South Australian child-abuse notifications studied, 21 cases also mentioned animal abuse.

Child abuse was proved at a much higher rate when animals were mentioned; in 18 of the 21 cases, compared to 12 of the 19 cases when animals had not been mentioned.

Prof Riggs said while the connection between the two forms of abuse had long been recognised, there was still no consistent cross-reporting by authorities.

“Reports of animal abuse in child-protection referrals may indicate more severe

cases of child abuse,’’ he said.

“While the abuse of animals is recognised in South Australian child-protection practice as a risk factor for children, thus far this has not extended to cross-reporting guidelines or legislation.”

The 40 case studies included 96 children, 60 per cent of whom were aged under six years at the time of referral.

Prof Riggs said the system broke down because animal-welfare staff were typically not “mandatory notifiers” in terms of child abuse.

“Current child-protection practice in Australia is to a large degree treated as separate to the protection of animals,’’ he said.

Physical abuse of children was suspected in 39 per cent of cases that mentioned animal abuse at referral, compared with 18 per cent of cases where animals had not been mentioned.

Similarly, child sexual abuse was suspected in 24 per cent of cases that mentioned animals, but only in 13 per cent of cases that did not.

“Unfortunately, given the lack of policy guidelines and legislative requirements for cross-reporting in South Australia, this practice is currently dependent on the knowledge and motivation of individual staff members,’’ Prof Riggs said.

“Recognition of the co-occurrence of child and animal abuse would suggest the importance of legislating for, and having policies that address, mandatory reporting in both child-protection and animal-protection sectors.”