Child abuse is the blanket term for four types of child mistreatment: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. In many cases children are the victims of more than one type of abuse. The abusers can be parents or other family members, caretakers such as teachers and babysitters, acquaintances (including other children), and (in rare instances) strangers.

Child abuse, also called cruelty to children, was once viewed as a minor social problem affecting only a handful of U.S. children. A problem that provoked the creation of national laws to protect children from cruel treatment in Great Britain in 1884, child abuse gained exposure when the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children originated the same year. The first state in the United States to legislate protection for children was New York in 1875. Other states followed New York's example, and soon, all states implemented...