Abuse occurs so infrequently that I dont believe that this would become a requirement even understate or federal regulation.
Neither you nor I are qualified to speak about the frequency of abuse. Please feel free to visit
http://http://www.childhelp.org/pages/statistics for more information about how often child abuse is reported in the United States. We can safely assume that not all child abuse is reported, so those numbers are baselines. Neither of us can say "my experience was X, so it must be that everyone experiences X." Not every child in every facility was abused because I was. But if you were not abused, or you know of someone who wasn't abused, this does not decrease the likelihood that many children are, and were.
And actually, there is already a relevant federal regulation in place: a law called "mandatory reporting." Every single staff member who witnessed abuse but did not report it to the local authorities is in violation of the law.
For reference, here is a brief description of what
minimum definitions for child abuse is, in the United States.
"CAPTA mandates "minimum definitions" for child abuse and sexual abuse. Child abuse or neglect is any recent act or failure to act:
Resulting in imminent risk of serious harm, death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation
Of a child (usually a person under the age of 18, but a younger age may be specified in cases not involving sexual abuse)
By a parent or caretaker who is responsible for the child's welfare"
http://http://www.smith-lawfirm.com/mandatory_reporting.htm
So, there should not even be a need for kids to report abuse directly to the authorities - the staff members are required by law to do the reporting if they witness abuse, or if a child mentions abuse or neglect. For details about the specific punishments for not following this law by state, please visit
http://http://www.rainn.org/public-policy/legal-resources/mandatory-reporting-database.
But, as several people have confirmed, their experiences were also that they were blocked from making abuse reports to anyone outside the facility (and I detailed the joke that reporting abuse within the facility can be). We might hope and envision that kids would be encouraged to make reports when abuse takes place so that every child should be safe. Because that is theoretically the job of the facility: keeping kids safe.
