If you had ever seen true child abuse you wouldn't even think this could be it.
If a 1 yr old truly wanted to sleep just redirecting them wouldn't do it, a baby who's body really needs and wants to sleep would sleep, we have all seen them sleeping thru parades at Disney or on rides, etc.
Not all kids need 16 hrs of sleep. We are individuals and in such have vastly different needs. My DD never napped and never needed that much sleep as a baby. She would only sleep about 9 hrs a night maybe 10 even as a newborn. And she is a perfectly healthy, intelligent, 20 yr old now.
I'm a special educator and I've seen "true" child abuse, or at least the results of it in my classroom.
I've also seen families whose chaotic lives lead to chronic severe sleep deprivation in their children. Usually it's not what the OP is describing here, that is parents setting out intentionally to keep their kids awake, but parents who do things like make their young elementary schoolers do the overnight care taking for younger siblings, or parents who late into the night, leaving their kids in setting where it's impossible to sleep (e.g. a crowded apartment with many family members, TV blaring, no place to lie down) and then pick them up at 1 a.m., waking them up fully to walk to the car before they go home.
The kids in these situations suffer hugely and their suffering looks like the suffering that kids who are being abused show. They're jumpy and hypervigilant, unable to concentrate on their learning. They can be super whiny and clingy. They get sick more often because they're run down. Oftentimes they become explosive, throwing tantrums or being aggressive. They do stupid impulsive things, sometimes including stupid impulsive things that are dangerous.
Sometimes we'll work with a parent to solve a problem, or the problem will be solved in some other way. For example, we worked with a parent with limited cognitive skills to understand why, if they have 1 TV, two preschoolers and two high schoolers, the preschoolers' bedroom wasn't the right place for the TV. That having your siblings watch horror movies or whatever while sitting on the foot of your bed doesn't lead to much sleep. Mom moved the TV to the high school kids' bedroom, and kids got more sleep. Or a parent who works nights will start working days and childcare will change. Anyway, there will be a change that allows kids to get a normal amount of sleep, and it's like the sun comes out. Kids who looked like they had severe cognitive, emotional or attentional problems suddenly look like typical kids.
I don't think that keeping your child awake is abuse on the level of a CPS call. As a mandated reporter, I don't call CPS on these families. But I do think it's abusive, in the same way that I think that families who verbally berate their kids in certain ways are abusive, even though I don't call for that either.
Whether the person in the OP is being abusive, is hard to say without knowing the child and knowing how tired they get.
It drives me crazy the people who live and die on a pediatricians words. 
