Violence against children in Australia is at a crisis point. We must start listening to kids before our most vulnerable slip through the cracks

The day I turned 14, two of my sister’s friends were found dead. They were 10 and 11 years old. Both had significant disabilities and attended the special-needs school my sister with severe disabilities also attends. Slowly, details emerged: their father had planned a murder-suicide, killing both children, his wife and himself.

It’s impossible to imagine what it must be like to lose a child to violence. Children who grow up inside places of abuse are forced to sacrifice themselves in unimaginable ways. Instead of learning to read, they learn how to anticipate anger; instead of playing with their friends, they isolate to keep away, out of fear.

And when they cannot escape or do not have the words to explain what is happening to them, our system – and the adults around them – do not see their suffering. A new landmark decade-long study by University of Sydney researchers shows that sexual and family violence against children is at a crisis point.

Analysing Australian data from 2014 to 2024, researchers found that recorded sexual assaults against children had increased by 32% among girls under 10, 51% among girls 10 to 17 and 60% among boys 10 to 17. Family and domestic violence-related assaults against children also increased sharply in recent years.

This is a national emergency. This study cannot explain exactly why violence is increasing. We know greater reporting, economic pressures and changing online cultures are all contributing factors. But the fact that assault-related hospitalisations and substantiated child maltreatment cases did not rise in step exposes a disturbing gap between what police are recording and what systems around them are capturing.

And the picture is so much worse than what these numbers can show. In my work as the former Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations, I travelled across the country and sat with children who could no longer live with their families. I have also sat with children in prison, for whom abuse, violence and neglect is part of their everyday routine.

I remember one 14-year-old girl I met from the Northern Territory, Kate*. Her home was a waking nightmare of abuse. Faced with the imminent violence waiting for her in her own bedroom, she fled to the streets. The alternative was frightening and uncertain, but staying meant confronting a terror she could no longer bear.

She was hungry. She needed to survive. She stole to feed herself. And because she stole, she was arrested. The system looked at a terrified 14-year-old girl and saw an enemy. It looked past her bruises and failed to see a young child who needed safety, protection and someone to listen.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 65% of children in youth justice systems 2022–23 had interacted with the child protection system. Half of those in detention experienced abuse or neglect during that period. And that percentage is only the ones who reported it.

Children fundamentally need love. They need an infrastructure of care, people and services that wrap their arms around them as they grow, recognise when something is wrong and stay beside them before their lives reach crisis point. But frontline services are strained.

Families face delays in accessing support, while social workers are forced to turn away clients based on limited time and resources. Government departments continue to operate in silos. But children do not experience their lives in silos. Disability, homelessness, violence and neglect collide, very often in a single child’s life.

But our systems are fragmented. Police see a direct confrontation; a teacher notices a slight change in behaviour; a nurse treats physical bruise; and a child-protection worker reads a single report – but because those agencies rarely talk to one another, none of them see the full picture, or the entire child.

And for children who are “different”, those gaps are fatal. My sister is non-verbal, and I know that an absence of “words” does not mean having nothing to say. I have seen first-hand how hard her and her peers, who are also non-verbal, have to fight just to be listened to and understood.

For any child who struggles with speech, disclosing violence is incredibly hard – and maybe this is why reporting has not kept up with the sheer magnitude of this crisis. These children cannot verbally tell a teacher what happened at home, or their parents what happened at school.

They cannot answer rapid-fire questions in a sterile room by police in the “expected” way. Their distress might be seen as a “behavioural problem”, or their silence misunderstood as an absence of pain. Children from refugee or migrant backgrounds who do not speak English as their first language also face barriers to seeking assistance if they lack culturally safe language support.

We need accessible and culturally competent services for children to communicate their experiences of violence, easily and without fear. More frontline workers and professionals should be trained to recognise and respond to the different forms of communication and distress that a child exhibits.

We need all levels of government to step up, take shared responsibility for child safety and facilitate coordination between agencies. Otherwise our most vulnerable children will slip through the cracks of jurisdictional and departmental boundaries. There must also be long-term investment in prevention and early intervention.

But most of all, we must listen to what our kids are saying. Because when a 14-year-old tells you that a cold prison cell feels safer than their own bedroom – that’s how we know we’ve failed our children. We cannot wait until another child is dead before governments decide their suffering matters.

A child should never have to find the “right words” for their abuse in order for an adult to finally pay attention. There is no vocabulary for trauma. *Not her real name • In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800; adult survivors can seek help at Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380.

In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453.

Other sources of help can be found at Child Helpline International • Satara Uthayakumaran is a writer and Australia’s youth representative to the United Nations for 2025. Satara served on the board of the Domestic Violence Crisis Service and has worked with Anti-Slavery Australia