May-Chahal, C.2013-10-032013-10-032006May-Chahal, C. (2006). Gender and child maltreatment: The evidence base.Social Work & Society, 4(1), 53-68.http://hdl.handle.net/11212/1201http://www.socwork.net/sws/article/view/176/236The scientific approach to the study of ‘child abuse’ has continued both in parallel and largely separate from gendered analyses of the problem. It is as if the politics of a gender based approach is not the proper business of science: the facts should speak for themselves. The empirical evidence base now consists of several prevalence studies across the world on ‘child abuse and neglect’ (WHO 2000) which should be improving understanding and informing responses to the problem. This paper builds on existing feminist arguments that gender plays a significant role in child maltreatment. It proposes that the way in which gender is categorised in prevalence research is insufficient to enable policy and practice to mainstream gender as a key issue informing responses which otherwise continue to reinforce the gender divisions of the countries in which they are based (see for example, Scourfield 2003).enresearchchild maltreatmentgenderArticle