You know, now you mention it, torture scenes of some kind do seem to be very common in kids films, and not just the Disney Pixar ones. The non-Pixar Disney ones often do as well, as do the Dreamworks ones. Not always, but a lot of the time.
One big question comes to mind: are there any kids animated films that were written by women, and do they feature torture scenes?
(I’d be willing to bet a lot of the Hallmark films are written by men, too.)