Child abuse costs Italy 13 bn euros a year, or 0.84% of GDP

(ANSA) – Milan, December 4 – The failure to prevent child abuse ends up costing Italian State coffers 13 billion euros a year or 0.84% of GDP, according to a study released Wednesday.

The report by Bocconi University, Terre des Hommes children’s rights NGO and Italy’s Anti-Child Abuse Services Coordinating Committee (Cismai) showed 100,231 abused children, or 0.98% of all minors, are in care in Italy as of 2010.

In that year, the State spent 49.6 million euros on hospitalizations, 21 million on therapy and counseling, 12.6 million on foster care, 38 million on social services, and 163.8 million on group homes, the study showed.

The State also spent an estimated three million euros on police intervention and 50.2 million euros on the juvenile justice system, with new cases costing an estimated 910 million euros a year. Abused children often grow into disturbed adults, leading to what the study calls the indirect costs of lack of prevention: 209.8 million euros in special education, 326 million euros in adult health care, 5.4 billion euros on adult criminality, 152 million on juvenile delinquency, and 6.6 billion euros in lost productivity overall.

“Our country needs to urgently change gears on its childhood policies, which are currently based on short-sighted ideas of alleged savings for which children are constantly paying the price,” said Terre des Hommes Children’s Rights Director Federica Giannotta. The study’s authors recommend including child-abuse prevention in the country’s national health plan and the promotion of a national, integrated plan to stop child abuse before it happens.