Posts Tagged ‘child protection’

Leave those kids alone. The horrifying statistics on child rape.

Posted: July 7, 2014 in Political musings, Popular Culture et al, Religion
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For reasons which need not concern us here, we were this morning browsing the Victorian Police crime statistics for the last year on offer, 2012-13.

We came across this staggeringly depressing statistic:

Incidence of rape against minors

This year 542 +0.71%

Last year 538

Incidence of rape against adults

This year 1,106 +1.5

Last year 1,090

child abuseYou might imagine, Dear Reader, that we are about to fulminate against the growth in the incidence of rape in both cases, in a sort of Colonel Mustard-like “Disgusted of Tonbridge Wells” manner.

But although we deplore the fact that the figures are rising rather than falling, we suspect the slight rise recorded is due to natural population growth.

 

Yes, we would have hoped that we would be seeing a steady decline in these stats, given that we are all supposed to be becoming more “aware” of the disgusting nature of sexual violence. But it appears it is a very slow process.

Something for those with the purse strings of Government advertising budgets to consider, perhaps.

We should see all domestic violence and rape and sexual assault as part of the same patriarchal continuum, and until men take it seriously, it will continue.

But what really horrifies is the raw number of more than 500 rapes against children in a year. Coming up for one-third of all rapes.

500? Five HUNDRED?

How many of these are against sexually active teenagers isn’t the point.

Rape is rape, it is never justified, and no excuses or attempted slut-shaming of the victims is ever acceptable. And although they were all against people who are legally children, ie under 18, and so there will be some mid-teens in there, it’s a pound to a penny that many of these crimes were against what you and I would recognise as children. Kids. Little tackers.

And this is the REPORTED cases. Ye Gods, the mind boggles. Unreported cases would run into the thousands.

Given the high profile given to many of these types of cases in the UK in particular, and in the various enquiries into child abuse in Australia, especially involving religious and community organisations, not to mention the recent brouhaha in the UK press about whether or not there was a high-level pedophile ring operating at the top of British Government (involving, allegedly, those close to at least two Prime Ministers, and perhaps even one (now deceased) Prime Minister), we simply suck in our breath in disgust and horror that this most avoidable and heinous of crimes, which leaves lives shattered sometimes beyond repair, is so persistent and pernicious despite the obvious fact that for the offenders the advice is utterly simple and unavoidable: don’t.

Just don’t. Do something else for your kicks, don’t do that. They are KIDS, for fuck’s sake.

To steal the innocence from a child, to betray their trust, to warp and bend that child’s value system until it is unrecognisable, to sometimes terrify the child into silence: these are crimes which demand the most urgent enquiry and vigilance, and an unrelenting determination to root out the offenders. Not one adult offender in this area can possibly imagine, for one moment, that their activities are anything more nor less than utterly destructive and illegal.

We must be unyielding in our attempts to cure this plague. Period. Full stop. That’s it. End of.

(Post scriptum: this article obviously talks about Victoria, Australia. I would be very happy to publish statistics from elsewhere if you can look them up. I urge you to find out how prevalent this crime is in YOUR community. And if you know of a community where it is LESS prevalent, perhaps we can all learn why.)

How can this happen? That’s all we ask. That’s all we DEMAND an answer to. How?

Posted: March 11, 2013 in Political musings
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After yesterday’s story, this is the other side of the child protection issue.

(From AAP)

What type of person beats a child? Sometimes, one simply despairs.

What type of person beats a child? Sometimes, one simply despairs.

A four-year-old boy bashed to death by his mother’s boyfriend told his grandmother, “(He) hurts me, nanny”, just weeks before his death, court documents show.

The little boy’s plea of, “(He) hurts me” and “(He) holds me down in the bath”, sparked efforts by his grandparents to alert the Department of Community Services (DoCs) and the police to his plight.

But no official action was taken and the boy died about five weeks later after the man hit him a number of times to the head while bathing him on April 1, 2011.

There were emotional scenes in the Supreme Court in Sydney on Monday when the man, 24, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded not guilty to murdering the boy, but guilty to his manslaughter.

The boy’s mother sobbed in the stand as she described how she watched her son fall to his knees and how she initially lied to police about what happened to him.

On the evening of her son’s death, her boyfriend had been coming down from amphetamines when he insisted on being the “father figure” and bathing the little boy after he wet the bed, she told the court.

An agreed statement of facts tendered to the court also showed the mother had been smoking cannabis earlier that day, while the boy had been suffering from a urinary tract infection exacerbated by her accidentally giving him undiluted fruit juice.

“(The man) was aggravated. Anything could make him spark, crack,” the mother told the court.

While he was bathing the child, she said she heard four bangs coming from the bathroom.

“(I heard the man) saying after each bang, `…stop it’,” she said, adding he sounded, “angry, agitated”.

When she looked into the bathroom, she said she saw the child standing there.

“(He) took a step towards me and fell to his knees,” she said through her tears.

After she dried the boy off, she asked him if he wanted his pyjamas, but he said, “No mummy, it’s too hot”, she said.

“He was really hot to touch. He was glassy eyed,” she said.

The man then told her to “fuck off” and she went downstairs, she added.

“I was scared … because of the previous physical violence to each other,” she said.

A few minutes later – after the man had returned downstairs – he went back up to check on the child and then called for the mother to come quickly.

The little boy appeared blue, was lying on his back with his eyes closed and had “four red dots” on his forehand, the woman said.

“All I could do was scream out his name,” she said.

The boy died later at Warren Hospital, with doctors finding he died as a result of multiple injuries, including severe head injuries. He had also inhaled water prior to his death.

The court heard the boy had been taken to hospital four days before his death suffering from a nose injury, black eyes and a cut to his forehead.

After his death, additional recent injuries were discovered on his body.

When the little boy stayed with his grandmother in February 2011, he told her, “(the man) hurts me, nanny”, and “(He) hurt me and holds me down in the bath”, the statement of facts said.

“The (grandparents) attempted to air their concerns about his welfare with the Department of Community Services and the police, but ultimately no official action was taken,” the facts said.

Justice Elizabeth Fullerton asked the woman, “Did you know your son had told your mother within a short time of his death that (the man) had held him down in the water?”

“Yes,” the mother replied.

The man’s sentence hearing will resume on April 5.

The world has gone mad. Official.

Posted: March 10, 2013 in Political musings, Popular Culture et al
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The Demarees' family photos were eventually ruled harmless. Photo: ABC News (US)

The Demarees’ family photos were eventually ruled harmless. Photo: ABC News (US)

A US couple are suing supermarket chain Walmart after their innocent family snaps were reported as child pornography.

When Lisa and Anthony Demaree dropped photos of their family holiday for development, they had no inkling of the storm that would follow.

Most of the photos showed the usual family holiday antics, but some were of the couple’s three young daughters, then 5, 4 and 1 1/2 years old, naked at bath time.

“Some of the photos are [bath] photos,” Lisa Demaree told ABC News at the time, “but there are a few after the bath. Three of the girls are naked, lying on a towel with their arms around each other, and we thought it was so cute.”

The Walmart employee developing the photos disagreed, and reported them to a manager. They were then passed to the police department, who called in Child Protective Services, and the Demaree’s nightmare began in earnest.

The couple lost custody of their three young children for a month, and their names were added to a central registry of sex offenders.

Lisa Demaree was suspended from her job at a local school for a year during an investigation of the matter.

While the couple were eventually cleared of all wrongdoing and the pictures were ruled harmless by a court, they are far from satisfied with the outcome.

“We’ve missed a year of our children’s lives as far as memories go,” Lisa Demaree told ABC News.

“As crazy as it may seem, what you may think are the most beautiful innocent pictures of your children may be seen as something completely different and completely perverted.”

Lawyers for Walmart told Courthouse News there was no malice intended by Walmart employees.

“I fear that what may happen after this case is [that the] employee will sit there and say, boy, if I turn these over my employer is going to spend millions of dollars in legal fees, and I’m going to get hauled in front of a deposition for eight hours, [so] maybe I’ll just stick them back in the envelope and not worry about them,” lawyer Lawrence Kasten said.

The Demarees are awaiting a verdict on their case against the city of Peoria and Walmart.

Wellthisiswhatithink asks one simple question:

How can this case separate these children from their parents for a month? And then it’s a year before they are cleared and their reputations reinstated.

I am less annoyed by Walmart – their employee will have acted in good faith – than I am with the ludicrous over-reaction and then delay from the Child Protection Service and the court.

We also ask: What the hell happened to commonsense? As the old joke says: What’s the difference between a rottweiler and a social worker? The rottweler will eventually give you your children back.

Lastly, we remind everyone that in much of the world children of these ages cheerfully wander their villages naked for the whole day with no one paying a blind bit of notice. Civlisation is all very well, but not when it distances us from the natural life of a human being.

Let us hope damages are severe and exemplary, and this family can get on with their lives again.