Finland: New Face of Child Abuse: Drunk Moms

Article here. Excerpt:

'Police statistics show that child abuse has a new face: drunken mothers. Police say they get around 400 reports of domestic violence against children each year; these days around two-thirds of the cases point to intoxicated mothers.

The recession has apparently had a lot to do with the spike in the number of inebriated women who turn abusive.

"The typical case is a single mother who has an alcohol problem and who's become exhausted by work," explains Police Sergeant Pekka Hätönen, who's in charge of the child abuse unit at the Helsinki Itäkeskus police department.

"She might have recently lost her job. All these pressures become focused on a misbehaving child, and the mother becomes easily enraged and lashes out physically, violently."'