Recognizing Intrafamilial Child Torture (ICT): Key Indicators
A Series on Intrafamilial Child Torture
Part 3 of 7 - Reading time: 7-10 minutes
In Part 2, we explored how ICT differs from other forms of child maltreatment and why understanding those distinctions matters. Here, we address the next essential question: How can professionals tell when a child may be experiencing ICT? Recognition is the first step toward safety, intervention, and healing.
What Makes ICT Hard to Spot?
Intrafamilial Child Torture is characterized by repeated patterns of severe harm--including emotional, physical, sexual, social, medical, and educational— that reinforce a caregiver’s power and control over a child victim. This can make ICT difficult to recognize if professionals are focused on confirming individual incidents of maltreatment rather than recognizing broader patterns of parental behaviors. One of the primary challenges, discussed earlier in this series, is that ICT has historically lacked a widely adopted definition and standardized assessment tools, making it harder for professionals to systematically identify and document these cases. Moreover, because ICT typically includes severe physical abuse, many ICT cases may be categorized solely as physical abuse before a deeper investigation can reveal the scope and extent of the maltreatment. Further, parents who torture are likely to use strategies to hide their acts, such as withdrawing them from school to be “home schooled” or preventing them from ever leaving the home. These parents may focus on a child’s “out-of-control” behavior to justify more strict disciplinary strategies, even though the cited misbehaviors are often normal, such as a two-year-old wetting the bed. Child victims may be more afraid to disclose than in typical maltreatment cases and may fear for their lives or the lives of their siblings if they disclose.
Key Indicators That May Signal ICT
These indicators are not specific to ICT, but the presence of more than one, especially when repeated over a period of time, should signal the possibility of ICT and should prompt a deeper assessment.
CMPRC’s research and review of documented ICT cases and case studies in the professional literature has identified recurring, observable caregiving behaviors and child impacts that, when present together, warrant careful evaluation for possible Intrafamilial Child Torture (ICT).
Caregiving Behaviors Frequently Seen in Cases of ICT
ICT cases frequently involve multiple, coordinated coercive behaviors, including:
Severe, extreme, and painful forms of physical abuse
Deliberately withholding food and water, causing malnutrition, starvation, and growth retardation
Solitary confinement of a child victim, such as locking a child in rooms, closets, cages, basements, or other isolated spaces
Physical restraint or restriction of movement, such as chaining, tying, duct taping a child to objects or furniture, or physically preventing a child from moving
Forced ingestion of unpleasant or non-edible substances
Restricting a child’s access to toileting or controlling the child’s bodily functions
Sleep deprivation, or forcing a child to sleep on floors, concrete, without bedding
Locking the child out of the home or restricting the child from leaving it
Forcing a child to maintain stress positions or excessive, punitive exercise for long periods of time
Sexual abuse, or sexual humiliation
Degrading or dehumanizing treatment, such as treating a child like an animal
Withholding necessary medical care
These parental acts are typically purposeful and deliberate, and parents may justify them as necessary discipline in response to a child’s bad behavior. However, often the child’s behaviors are developmentally normal or typical, including those that just annoy the parent (such as chewing too loudly or slamming a door.)
Documented Impacts on Children
Research has documented that child victims often experience one or more of the following outcomes from ICT:
Chronic malnourishment, dehydration, starvation, growth retardation, dangerously low weight for age
Serious head injuries from blunt force trauma or other severe physical injuries
Untreated medical conditions or permanent disfigurement
Profound psychological impact, including altered mental state, delays in a child’s development, or the loss of agency and autonomy
Death of the child
Why These Indicators Matter
Recognizing these indicators will allow professionals to intervene earlier to accurately identify risks to child victims and to intervene quickly to ensure children’s safety.
A Story That Shows the Pattern
(Composite case based on CMPRC case study materials)
“Maya,” age 10, had been referred to the school nurse for chronic stomach aches. Over months, staff noticed she rarely ate lunch and jumped whenever adults spoke sharply. The nurse observed that Maya flinched when asked to remove her jacket, even in warm weather.
When asked gently about home, Maya said almost nothing except: “I don’t want to get in trouble.”
Later investigation revealed that her caregiver restricted her meals as punishment, forced her to sleep on the floor without blankets, and dictated exactly how she could speak, move, and behave. If Maya cried, she was told to “cry quietly or there will be more.”
None of these details came out in a single conversation. The pattern emerged only because multiple professionals shared observations and connected seemingly small concerns.
Maya’s story illustrates what makes ICT difficult—and essential—to identify: the harm is found not in one event, but in how a child’s entire daily experience is shaped by fear and control.
The Multidisciplinary Imperative
School personnel, healthcare providers, social workers, mental health clinicians, law enforcement, and extended family members may each know about different pieces of the child’s experience. When these observations are shared with others, a child like Maya may be viewed as “anxious,” “acting out,” or “developmentally delayed,” however, when this information is shared, it becomes easier to recognize patterns of maltreatment and coercion over time. With more comprehensive information, child safety and future risk can be more accurately assessed, and effective safety planning can occur. Follow up interventions can also be more precise and targeted specifically for children experiencing ICT.
ICT cases benefit from collaboration- rarely does a single professional sees the full picture alone.
Scholar’s Corner
“Torture is the systematic and deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person over whom the actor has physical control, in order to induce a behavioral response from that person.”
Paul D. Kenny, PhD. (Kenny, P. D. (2010). The meaning of torture. Polity, 42(2), 131–155).
Something to Think About
As ICT becomes more clearly defined, it also highlights how much remains unknown. The incidence of ICT is not currently known, and important questions remain about child vulnerability, caregiver characteristics, and how ICT develops and evolves over time.
We still need clearer evidence about whether certain child factors—such as disability, dependency, or isolation—increase risk; whether specific caregiver behavioral health patterns are more common in ICT cases, and whether there is a recognizable progression from other forms of maltreatment into torture.
These gaps underscore why ICT must be understood as its own category of maltreatment. Without a defined framework, patterns are missed, cases are fragmented, and opportunities to protect children are missed.
As you reflect on your role, consider:
What observable caregiver behaviors and child outcomes are most consistently present in the cases you encounter?
At what point does escalating control or deprivation require a different investigative lens?
How might clearer definitions and stronger research support earlier, more effective intervention?
Looking Ahead
In Part 4, we turn our attention to the child survivor—the psychological, emotional, and developmental impact of ICT, the lasting effects of prolonged harm, and the therapeutic responses required to support recovery.