by the Athens Solidarity Center of SolidarityNow
One of the main discussion issues regarding childhood worldwide is the exposure to violence and especially the exposure to domestic violence. It is apparent that over time, we witness advances and changes towards a better approach to the issue.
However, even today, many of us, if not all of us, have occasionally heard phrases like “nothing bad happened to me even though I was beaten a little”. We should note, of course, that violence against children is not only physical, but also emotional and verbal, and of course neglect is also violence.
Reflecting on the operation of the psychological service of the Athens Solidarity Center in the first quarter of 2023, we became once again witnesses of the devastating consequences of domestic violence in a child’s life that follow him/her in adulthood as well.
Unfortunately, we observed the following, without any surprise:
In more than 60% of the cases (all adults), one of the key factors in the development of severe psycho-emotional difficulties and social exclusion is the neglect and exposure to violence within the family when they the beneficiaries were children. It is interesting to note that while we meet people of various nationalities in the Centre, the percentage of the Greeks who seek support from the service due to such incidents and trauma is higher than that of other nationalities. This of course does not suggest that in Greece people are more violent towards children than people in other countries (there are different answers to be given here), but we can certainly conclude that violence against children has no nationality.
At the same time, we saw that these cases are the ones that require the longest support and tend to be the cases that remain in the service extended time than cases of people who have not been exposed to such events.
* Since August 2022, the Athens Solidarity Center is financed by EEA Grants, with ΣΟΛ Crowe and HumanRights360 as the fund operator.
**From 1/7/2021 till 30/6/2023, Kahane Foundation supports the Psychosocial service of the Athens Solidarity Center.
***The Center is also supported by the Municipality of Athens.