Contribution
Animal abuse – Child abuse. There is no biological necessity
Konstantinou, Loukas

Anthropologischer Anzeiger Volume 76 No. 3 (2019), p. 223 - 231
publié: Sep 1, 2019
publication en ligne: Aug 15, 2019
manuscrit accepté: Jul 4, 2019
revision du manuscrit reçu: May 6, 2019
révision du manuscrit demandée: Nov 13, 2018
manuscrit reçu: Jul 13, 2018
DOI: 10.1127/anthranz/2019/0922
ArtNo. ESP140007603005, Prix: 29.00 €
Abstract
In the last years, cases of violence against animals win often a main place in the everyday news. The way of abuse has different characters. Mostly the affected animals are living in the same places like humans. The result for the animal is often a long term health affection or even death. In a parallel way one gets the impression that also the cases of violence against children increase year after year. Surely the easy way to present cases of violence through the social media in our days bring them faster into our perception. But indeed it seems that the fact of animal or child abuse appears in a higher frequency and intensity compared to the past. A lot of factors play a role looking for an answer, like the age and the sex of the incriminated person, the geographic area, the stereotypes in a certain cultural circle, the social and economic status of the person. A main motive seems to be the feeling of dominance against weak persons or in general against objects. Cases of animal or children cruelty seem to have a higher frequency in lower life level classes. But also the violence of minors or children against animals has here a horrifying statistic. The phenomenon of neglect has to be described here as a form of violence. A comparison with the results of a statistic view including 315 cases of violence in different levels of an emergency station protocol comes also into discussion. Animals and children as victims of violence should not present a human biological necessity.
Mots-clefs
animal cruelty • children abuse • violence • human ethology • dominance • social status • statistics • cultural stereotypes • rituals • ambulance