Child protection: a universal concern and a permanent challenge in the field of child and adolescent mental health

For much of history, cruelty to children was viewed as a private rather than a societal concern. An early sign of change occurred in the 1870s, when the pivotal case of Mary Ellen Wilson, a severely abused child in New York City, attracted intensive coverage in influential newspapers such as the New York Times and led to the founding of the first child protection agency. Sociologist Michael King has described the media response to cases of extreme child abuse in terms of a moral agenda, saying, “In this category of agenda it is not individuals, but social systems which are being unjust to children” [1].