The safest place for children should be their own home and family, but the facts place this assumption in doubt. According to data of Russian statistics, 2,000-2,500 children die every year as a result of domestic violence; about 2 million minor children up to the age of fourteen are beaten by their parents, more than 50,000 children run away from home every year to avoid abuse, 25,000 of them are being sought by the authorities, about 2,000 take their own lives every year, more than 50 percent of domestic crimes are committed in the presence of children, and 30-40 percent of all crimes of violence in Russia are committed in the home. The number of homeless children in Russia, now 3-4 million, is rising. This article discusses violence directed against children, yet so far, specialists have not seen situations involving children as witnesses as situations that have the potential for professional intervention. And yet children who, for example, have witnessed abuse by their father against their mother suffer from what is called "secondary victimization." They also have an inclination to engage in aggressive behavior in their childhood and when they become adolescents. The results of surveys conducted in the United States have shown that in families where women have been the victims of violence by their husbands, the children also become the objects of abuse (from 30-60 percent of families). These data are also backed up by Russian surveys. Children's reactions to violence differ depending on their age, gender, and social support offered to them. But the children who are witnesses to violence as well as the objects of abuse have the most serious behavioral problems. The mass media, the police, social workers, sociologists, psychologists, social educators, medical personnel, institutions, and civil society can and must put up a united front against the abuse of children. (Contains 3 notes.)