Homicide of Children through Violence, Abuse or Neglect in a Small Nordic Welfare Society

The purpose of this study was to explore the nature of cases of child maltreatment leading to death in Iceland which is a small Nordic welfare society. The research questions were the following; 1) How many children have died in Iceland as a result of abuse or neglect during a 35-year time period? 2) What was the social context of these incidents and what were the antecedents? 3) What risk factors can be identified that might have predicted the incidents? Court reports and news media were analysed using content analyses. According to those documents, eight children died due to maltreatment by seven perpetrators in a 35-year period in Iceland. Four of the perpetrators were mothers; one was a father, one was a male day-care provider and one was a boy. The causes of death seemed to be partially related to the social context of the manslaughters. Four types of incidents were identified: a) two drownings, b) two cases of neonaticide, c) two cases of shaken baby syndrome and d) two cases of filicides. The results show that even in a small Nordic welfare society, children do die as a result of maltreatment, even though such incidents seem to be very rare.