Children with Disabilities
Recognising and
Responding to Abuse
Children with disabilities are at significantly higher risk of abuse and neglect than other children, and the abuse they experience is far less likely to be noticed or reported. This is not because of anything about the children themselves. It is because of how the adults and systems around them are arranged.
A child with a disability may depend on several adults for feeding, toileting, dressing, transport and supervision. They may communicate in ways that others do not take the trouble to understand. They may have been taught, with the best of intentions, to comply with adults. They may spend their days in special units, day centres or residential facilities with little contact with the outside world. Each of these things makes it easier for harm to happen and harder for the child to tell.
Abuse in these settings takes the same forms as anywhere else: physical, emotional, sexual, neglect and financial. But it also takes forms specific to disability: inappropriate restraint or seclusion, withholding medication, therapy or equipment, degrading personal-care routines, over-sedation, or simply a culture in which a child’s distress is routinely explained away as a symptom.
That last point is the heart of the problem. Bruises are attributed to falls, withdrawal to the condition, fear to anxiety, self-injury to behaviour. The question that every teacher, carer and therapist should keep asking is a simple one: would I accept this explanation for a child without a disability?
Under Greek law (Law 4837/2021) anyone who works with children and suspects abuse or neglect is required to report it, and every setting must have a named Child Protection Officer. You are never required to be certain, to have proof, or to investigate. Your job is to notice, to listen, to write down what you saw, and to pass it on the same day. The guides below walk through how.
Global estimates of violence against children with disabilities
Source: Lancet Child Adolescent Health 2022; 6: 313–23
-
The overall prevalence of violence against children with disabilities is 31,7% (nearly 1 in 3 children)
-
The overall odds of children with versus without disabilities experiencing violence is 2,08 times higher
-
Children in economically disadvantaged contexts are especially vulnerable to experiencing violence
Guides – How to React?
-
If you’re worried but nothing has been said
Most concerns start as a feeling that something isn’t right. Act on it.
Look at the pattern, not the single event. An unexplained mark, a child who flinches before personal care, a sudden loss of skills, a new fear of one adult or one room, damaged or missing equipment, missed medical appointments, a change in sleep, eating or continence with no medical reason. None of these proves anything. Together, over time, they are exactly what abuse looks like from the outside.
Be especially alert to injuries that don’t fit the child’s mobility (bruising on a child who can’t walk), injuries in clusters or patterns, and repeated ‘self-injury’ or ‘falls’ that nobody has properly assessed.
Write the observation down factually and tell your setting’s Child Protection Officer the same day. Don’t wait to collect more evidence, and don’t discuss it with the person you’re worried about.
-
If a child tells you something
Listen, reassure, and don’t lead.
Let the child communicate in their own way and at their own pace, using whatever they normally use: speech, signs, symbols, a communication device, gestures, drawing. If you need a communication partner or interpreter, ask for one who is independent of the family and of anyone the child has named.
Tell the child they did the right thing, that it is not their fault, and that you will help. Don’t promise to keep it secret; you can’t, and the child needs to hear that from you rather than discover it later.
Use open prompts (‘Tell me what happened’) and stop there. Don’t suggest names, actions or details, and don’t question the child repeatedly. A trained professional will conduct the formal interview; your job is to receive what the child offers and record it accurately.
Explain, in language the child understands, what you are going to do next.
-
If a child is in danger right now
Safety first, then the phone, then the record.
Make the child safe and get medical care if needed. Call 112 (or 100 for Police, 166 for an ambulance). Do not leave the child alone with the person you suspect. Inform the Child Protection Officer or the head of the setting immediately.
If sexual or serious physical abuse is suspected, don’t wash the child, change their clothes or clean the area unless it’s needed for medical care. Evidence matters, and it disappears quickly.
-
Writing it down
Your record may end up in front of a prosecutor. Make it one you’d stand behind.
Record the date, time, place, who was present, what you saw or heard, and the child’s own words, signs or symbol sequence as exactly as you can. Note the communication method used and who assisted. Separate fact from interpretation, and label any opinion as opinion.
Describe injuries on a body map rather than photographing the child, unless the Police or a doctor ask you to. Sign and date the record within 24 hours and hand it to the Child Protection Officer. It is kept in a confidential child protection file, separate from the child’s educational record.
A printable Concern Record Form is included in the protocol document at the end of this section.
-
Telling the right person: the Child Protection Officer
Every concern goes to one named person the same day.
Every school, kindergarten, day centre and residential unit must designate a Child Protection Officer (Υπεύθυνος Προστασίας Ανηλίκων) and a deputy. Know who yours is. The Officer receives all concerns, decides whether to consult (a doctor, the regional ΚΕ.Δ.Α.Σ.Υ., social services) and whether to make an external report, and keeps the file.
If the Officer isn’t available, tell the head of the setting. If your concern is about the Officer or the head, or about both, report directly to the external services below. Being unable to reach the right person internally is never a reason to hold on to a concern.
You should hear back within a few working days that action has been taken, even if you can’t be told the details.
-
The reporting and escalation ladder in Greece
Internal first, external without delay when it’s serious, always the same day.
The Child Protection Officer in your setting, for every concern, however small.
The National Child Protection Line 1107 (EKKA, free, 24 hours) for advice and referral on any concern, and for reporting when the people you’d normally tell are themselves implicated.
The national reporting platform mila.gov.gr, established under Law 4837/2021, for the formal report that professionals are required to make.
The Public Prosecutor for Minors (Εισαγγελία Ανηλίκων) at your local court, for a formal criminal report and for protective measures. Offences against minors are prosecuted whether or not the family agrees.
Police on 100 or 112 for immediate danger. The Cyber Crime Division (11188, ccu@cybercrimeunit.gov.gr) for online sexual exploitation or images.
The Ombudsman for Children (800 11 32000) for rights violations, including in institutions, where internal channels have failed.
Helplines for the child and family: The Smile of the Child on 1056, Together for Children on 116111, and EKKA’s social emergency line on 197.
-
If the concern is about a colleague
It’s the hardest report to make, and the one the law protects most clearly.
Tell the head of the setting immediately. If the allegation concerns the head, go to the Child Protection Officer and to the supervising authority (the Regional Directorate of Education or the licensing body), and to the Prosecutor or Police if a crime may have been committed.
The head’s job is to make the child safe, consider whether the person should be kept away from children while inquiries are made, and inform the external authorities. The head does not investigate and does not interview the child.
A report made in good faith is protected under Article 6 of Law 4837/2021. Retaliation against someone who raised a concern is itself a disciplinary matter.
-
Communicating with a child who doesn’t use speech
Every child can tell you something, if you make it possible.
Find out and write down, in advance, how each child communicates and what supports they need. Make sure communication devices are charged, present and loaded with vocabulary for feelings, body parts, ‘stop’, ‘no’ and ‘help’. A child cannot report what they have no words or symbols for.
When a disclosure or an interview is needed, insist on a sign-language interpreter, communication partner or intermediary who is independent of the family and of the person suspected. A parent translating for their child is not a neutral channel, however well-meaning.
Give children information about their rights and about who to tell in easy-read, pictures, Greek Sign Language or audio, and teach body safety, privacy and consent as part of the curriculum, adapted to each child’s level.
-
The emotional side for staff
Suspecting a family or a colleague is distressing. Doubt is not a reason to stay silent.
Most people who report a concern worry that they are wrong, that they will damage a relationship, or that they will get someone into trouble. These feelings are normal and they are not evidence. Your responsibility ends with an honest, timely, factual report; deciding what it means is someone else’s.
Use supervision and talk to the Child Protection Officer. Settings that treat concerns as routine, discuss them openly and support the person who raised them are the settings where children are safest.
Safe Practice in Your Setting
-
Safer recruitment and supervision
The people around a child are the single biggest variable in their safety.
Before anyone is appointed, obtain a criminal record certificate and check for disqualification under Article 7 of Law 4837/2021; repeat the check periodically. Verify references, ask about gaps in employment, and put child protection questions in the interview. Contractors, drivers, therapists and volunteers are bound by the same rules as staff and should be given the Child Protection Officer’s details on their first day.
Give staff regular supervision and make concerns easy to raise. Welcome independent visitors and advocates, especially in residential units. Tell children and families how to complain, and ask them what they think.
-
Personal care, restraint and everyday conduct
Dignity in the small routines is where a child learns whether adults can be trusted.
Personal care follows a written plan agreed with the child and family, respects privacy, and where possible is delivered by staff the child has chosen. Physical intervention or restraint is a last resort, used only by trained staff, proportionate, and always recorded and reviewed. No adult should be routinely alone with a child out of sight of others; where one-to-one work is necessary it is planned, visible and recorded.
Staff don’t use personal phones or social media to contact children or families. Mocking or degrading language about disability is treated as a conduct matter, because it is the soil in which worse things grow.
How to ask for help
Organizations, helplines, and support resources.