Violence against youngsters in Denmark

Commissioned by the Danish Ministry of Social Affairs, this report surveys the extent of violence against youngsters. We concentrated on physical violence against 13-14-year-old schoolchildren and performed the analysis on the basis of 1,042 questionnaire responses. The response rate from the pupils from the participating schools was 86.6%.
THE EXTENT OF VIOLENCE AND CONFLICT SITUATIONS
Violent acts often stem from conflict situations. A majority of youngsters in our survey assessed the level of conflict at home to be low or moderate, and found their family were generally good at dealing with conflict. At the same time we observed that 20% of youngsters had been subject to violence by parents within the past 12 months.
One-fifth is a worryingly large proportion. The numbers are no less worrying if we look at how many reported they have been subject to violence at all, either once or several times. A total of 12% at some time had been subject, on one or several occasions, to one or several forms of violence by one or both parents, while 8% had been subject to violence only once.
SUBJECT TO VIOLENCE BY OTHER YOUNGSTERS
Life outside the home plays an ever greater role during the transition from childhood to adulthood. Outside the home, youngsters are also exposed to violence. Although they primarily experience non-physical reactions to disagreements with peers, around one-quarter report having experienced conflict situations that involved violence. Youngsters are more often subject to violence committed by peers they already know than by peers who are strangers to them. However, our results indicate that violence from peers who are strangers is also relatively common.