Reported Child Abuse Cases Unchanged

Last year, out of 700,000 calls to the Social Emergency hotline, 160,000 reports involved child abuse.

Data shows no meaningful difference compared to the previous year, according to Habibollah Masoudi Farid, deputy for social affairs at the State Welfare Organization.  “Social emergency centers are the main entity tasked to deal with child mistreatment among other social harms,” said the official, ISNA reported.  There are currently 245 social emergency centers in the country but the figure is expected to rise to 350 by the end of the current fiscal year in March 2018.

As per law, child abuse is a public-order crime and does not require a plaintiff to be brought to the court of law. A public-order crime is defined as any violation involving interference with the normal operation of society. Those who are aware of a child being abused but fail to report it can be charged for complicity.