In Ohio, child welfare organizations began a new public awareness campaign to increase awareness of child abuse perpetrated by mothers’ boyfriends. Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services are beginning this campaign recognizing that a significant amount of child abuse occurs at the hands of non-biological male partners to mothers of children.
Lorain and Franklin county child protection agencies have also started their public awareness campaigns citing Ohio Department of Health data that reports 28 percent of child abuse deaths are caused by non-biological male partners of the mothers of the deceased victims. Forensic psychologists believe these male perpetrators may have feelings for the women but not for their children; and in fact may resent the children from previous relationships and dislike child-rearing. This resentment leads to violence and child abuse in cases where male partners have poor coping skills with the stress of raising non-biological children. However, some non-biological male partners that abuse children may just be psychopathic, in which case they operate on a different set of rules and see the world differently.
Because public awareness campaigns will increase the general public awareness of abuse by non-biological males, mothers and other adults may be held accountable for allowing child abuse by non-biological males to continue in their families. The awareness campaign also target mothers that have married non-biological partners to their children.