Does mandatory reporting legislation increase contact with child protection? – a legal doctrinal review and an analytical examination

This occurred where the term “sexual abuse” was sometimes not expressly included in the legal provision, but the term “ill-treatment or need for protection” was used, which would embrace sexual ill-treatment or the need for protection because of sexual abuse (and the perception in practice of this by the reporter). Verdun-Jones et al. [14] confirm that sexual abuse was often not expressly included in the initial versions of legislation, but may have been considered in practice as a species of physical ill-treatment, at least in cases of sexual abuse by parents or caregivers; and that subsequently the duty was expressly extended to sexual abuse. An example is Alberta, where the initial enactment of 1966 expressly applied to physical ill-treatment or need for protection, and the subsequent amendment in 1984 expressly included sexual abuse as a category of a child being in need of protection. Similarly, Quebec’s initial enactment applying expressly to physical abuse on 28 December 1974 (“physical ill-treatment as the result of abuse or neglect”) was enlarged by express inclusion of sexual abuse on 3 April 1984.