Over the last 50 years, there has been what is often described as an ‘explosion’ of interest in the issue of child abuse. In western countries an ever expanding range of laws, policies and procedures have been introduced to address this problem, while media coverage of child abuse scandals has at times reached saturation point. Revelations of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy – and its ‘cover-up’ by church authorities – have given rise to one of the greatest institutional scandals of modern history. Moreover, the paedophile has emerged as ‘the bogeyman of our age’ who inspires fear and public loathing, ‘often beyond all moderation’ (Silverman and Wilson, 2002: 1).

The current preoccupation with child abuse does not, of course, mean that this is a recent phenomenon, or even that it is on the increase (Lalor, 1998). Historians have found that the mistreatment of children (including infanticide, abandonment, severe physical punishment, child prostitution and harsh labour) has existed throughout history. According to deMause (1974: 1), ‘the further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care, and the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorized, and sexually abused’. He views the history of childhood in evolutionary terms, as ‘a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken’. Other historians have taken a less censorious view of childhoods past, arguing that although living conditions and general standards of care for children were far lower than those of today, and although children often had to undertake hard labour, this was largely a consequence of harsh economic conditions (Corby et al, 2012: 19). Historians are also divided over societal attitudes to the mistreatment of children: while some have argued that there was widespread indifference to the mistreatment of children who were viewed as little more than possessions, others dispute the notion that it is only in recent times that societies have shown any concern about this problem (Pollock, 1983; Corby et al, 2012: 22-3).