We created a survey designed to fully help us understand the margin between Asians’ and Westerners’ understandings of child abuse. We received about 128 responses in total, with responders from Germany to Hong Kong. Most respondents were teenagers our age (15), with a few adults. To better understand our own cultures, we made sure to collect many results from people in our own countries. The final figures were 16 Taiwan responses, 21 Singapore responses, 34 India responses and 31 Korea responses.
SURVEY RESULTS ANALYSIS
After analyzing the survey responses, we found that most have been beaten by their parents at some point in their lifetime. However, those who selected “no” mostly hailed from Western countries, such as Britain and New Zealand.
Most decided that all four options we provided (see figure 2) were varying forms of child abuse. After analyzing in detail, while we found that more people did not consider the inability to provide or sexual abuse and degrading children to be child abuse, the most significant point was that only 71.8% of respondents considered beating to be child abuse. We can hypothesize that other respondents felt that beating was only a form of discipline. This was the evidence we needed of people’s division of thought.
Slightly over 60% of respondents agreed that there was a difference between Asian and Western perspectives of child abuse. This showed that perhaps the subject was not as widely debated in some countries which could have led to some respondents not being as aware of the contrast. It is evident that more awareness must be raised about the topic. The “other” responses included thoughts about how it was not their perspectives that were different, but their societies and what was allowed in them.
When asked whether they were against parents hitting their children, we found that more than half of respondents were in fact opposing the idea. This might symbolize how new generations might have different conceptions than older ones, given that most respondents have been beaten by their own parents before. “Other” responses included thoughts about how it depended on the situation.
Respondents were asked to comment on what could be done to reduce child abuse. More than 80% stated that educating parents about forms of child abuse and their affects on children would be helpful. Some said that posters should be made and posted on social media. A few talked about forming campaigns to raise awareness.
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