33,000 reasons to act on child abuse

Jaime says:

11:53am | 08/09/10

A perfectly good article, derailed by Eric as always.

Everyone should protect children against from any kind of abuser, male or female, young or old.

The idea, as Eric says, that men are the rightful protector of children and they are prevented from protecting children is unsubstantiated.

Note that the article says that 40% of 20,000 people polled think that child abuse is not their business. This is the root cause of the issue. It’s not people going around eyeballing men and giving women free passes. It’s people outright just not caring or just thinking it’s not anything to do with them. Why don’t you address the core problem here instead?

Eric says:

01:18pm | 08/09/10

So, Jaime, are you claiming that it is not the rightful role of men to protect children? What is the rightful role of men in regards to children, in your opinion?

liz says:

01:36pm | 08/09/10

Mothers are often listed first in a child protection notification, as they are, in a majority if the cases, the primary care giver. Last year in WA there was a situation where the media got hold of these statistics and reported mothers were abusing their children in much higher rates, when in reality, it was simply mothers listed first on the notification. This does not mean that the mother is the perpetrator, or primary aggressor. I am not saying that all child abusers are men, but I am not saying they are all women either. People of either gender can be equally as sick and harm children.

Eric says:

02:43pm | 08/09/10

Of course, Liz, not all abusers are mothers. Just as not all perpetrators of domestic violence are not men - despite what NAPCAN’s propaganda tries to say.

But it is the case that the most prevalent abusers of children are their mothers. I would say that this largely comes as a result of a few factors: Mothers spend more time with children, and everyone is told that fathers are the bad ones, so nobody looks at mothers.

Also, boys and men are taught that they are dangerous and must restrain themselves from committing violence - but girls and women are taught that they are always innocent and don’t need to exercise any control over angry impulses.

AliceC says:

03:41pm | 08/09/10

@Eric.

I do not recall growing up being told that I was always innocent and did not need to control my ‘Violent impulses’. Where on earth did you get this ‘information’?

As Jamie said, you’re not even addressing the article itself. Everyone is responsible to protect the welfare and wellbeing of children. How about you stop being a misogynist, and start with some productive suggestions?

Eric says:

04:56pm | 08/09/10

AliceC, look here:

http://www.napcan.org.au/programs/love-bites

This is a program aimed at school children, which is explicitly gendered, and depicts men and boys as the perpetrators of violence.

To me, this seems an act of psychological violence against boys, who are demeaned and vilified by such compulsory propaganda.

If we want to end child abuse, we should start by ending the systematic, government sponsored psychological abuse of boys in schools.

Andrew says:

12:15pm | 10/09/10

Sounds like Eric has a few issues. Neglect is one issue and violence and abuse is another. Men are statistically more likely to be perpetrators of violence and abuse that is a fact. That doesn’t mean women don’t commit acts of violence and abuse it means men are the majority of perpetrators.  Why are you afraid of feminist ideology? I’m a man and I’m a feminist. All it means is striving towards the equality between the sexes, nothing else, nothing more - why are we afraid of feminism? Is it because men don’t want to loose their power and control? The very reason that violence against women and children occurs in the first place. Address the attitudes towards women and you will make inroads into addressing child abuse. Eric time to do some research and reading about the subject not fall into the blame the feminist trap.

hot tub political machine says:

03:55pm | 08/09/10

You mentioned that child abuse and mental illness are parts where we are failing the community. Indeed they are linked. There was one study that showed 60% of mental illness outpatients disclosed being sexually abused as a child - and of course many people don’t disclose that they have been abused so that figure is way lower than the reality.

Cherrie says:

09:09pm | 08/09/10

Phil - I agree. Sadly the connection between child abuse and mental health is completely overlooked.

My son suicided early this year - after a long history of mental health issues. These issues were exacerbated by abuse from his father and step-mother. Abuse I didn’t see and inadvertantly sent him to live with.

After he returned to me at the age of 14 (he was with his father for 4 yrs) he got intensive help - but the mental health system failed him dreadfully.

Even though the Dept of Child Safety identified the abuse - they didn’t provide any intervention for him or any support for myself and my daughter (his full sister). No one told me that it was not in his best interest to attempt to maintain a relationship with his father. Sadly, even though my instincts told me he was better cutting ties and moving on - I supported his attempts at maintaining a relationship with his father because no one told me any different and that’s what the family court tell you.

So there was a further 4 yrs of an on-again off-again relationship with his father and step-mother during which the emotional abuse pattern continued. No one told me that this abuse was well known as the CAUSE of his mental health issues. I knew that was the source of his angst but the extent of it being the cause was never explained to him or me - even though he was always seeing a psychiatrist, psychologist or counsellor…. not until late last year.

My son felt a huge sense of injustice - that his father could do this to him and nothing happen. Why you ask? Because there is no mandatory reporting of child abuse by the Dept of Child Safety to police. AND emotional abuse isn’t a crime.

I can’t explain how this undermined his self of self that was so extremely fragile already.

In April this year he suicided - after 5 years of talking about it and many attempts. The last thing he talked to me about was about how much he wanted his Dad - and how he couldn’t find it in his heart to forgive him. He still would have given anything to have his Dad’s love.

For those that survive - there’s a lifetime of struggle - emotional torment, drugs and alcohol, jail, broken relationships - and it goes on and on….

It didn’t matter how much I loved him and it didn’t matter how much his sister loved him…. we could never take away the hurt and agony of being hurt by his Dad….. and the injustice he felt….

Tragic - yes - acceptable - no. The biggest tragedy is that his story is NOT unusual…. Yet we see the child protection and mental health system fail these kids every day.

This is NOT acceptable in 21st century Australia.

What to do - lobby for change - push your local members to do something about it… and don’t stop. Change your own attitude to these kids - report the abuse and neglect - and stop throwing mud at kids and teens who behave badly - spare a thought for what they might have been through.

Compassion - I believe that’s what it is…. if we all tried just a little we can at least change the attitudes of society.

Phil says:

08:12am | 08/09/10

Cannot believe you and Eric are on the same page.

T.Chong says:

09:13am | 08/09/10

well phil, observing the realities of everyday life, and commenting on such, should not be straight jacketted by your prefferance for political partes.

Jaime says:

12:06pm | 08/09/10

At this stage, I wonder if anyone is even actually reading the article or just seeing the title and thinking ‘Child abuse, alrighty! I know a lot about it, I can comment!’ If there is evidence that women are neglecting their children, then by all means campaign about it. Put all the evidence out there.

But this article is providing you with statistics that many Australians, advanced and educated as we are, don’t care. They believe a child’s welfare is the parents’ alone and 40% of 20000 think it’s none of their business. This is not a case of “Oh, it’s a woman doing it so I’m not going to report it”. This is an issue being “It’s not my kid, so it’s not my business.” Regardless of whether or not the parent who is abusing or neglecting their child is a father or a mother, the people around them don’t want to get involved. They don’t want to report it. And I say this not just based on stats, but based on the opinions of some people I know.

I am not discounting your experience, but I do feel you are detracting from the article when it is trying to deliver a very good point. That people need to take more responsbility as a society.

Lisa says:

01:25pm | 08/09/10

As someone who dealt with physical and emotional abuse at the hands of my mother, in a family who still makes excuses for her, I agree wholeheartedly with you. Society really does turn a blind eye to abuse, especially to emotional abuse and to female perpetrators.

Eric says:

12:46pm | 08/09/10

Good point, Ariel.

Sexist family courts have been for many years forcing children to stay with abusive parents simply because those parents happen to be female. The stereotype of the mother as a carer who wouldn’t harm a child, and of the father as a potential abuser, has resulted in the deaths of numerous children.

It is high time that the courts dropped their misandrist assumptions, and looked at what really is in the best interests of the child. Statistics show that natural fathers are the least likely to harm children.

Niki says:

03:52pm | 08/09/10

Quite right Areil - political will, courage and leadership are needed.  Do we have such a “leader”, one who regards the safety and happiness of children as the priority over a popularity poll?

Jaime says:

04:00pm | 08/09/10

I disagree entirely Eric. I think the problem with the courts is that they are still too attached to the notion of giving the natural parents (male and female alike) a second, third, fourth, fifth chance. Show me these statistics where natural fathers are least likely to harm their children. What is your source? How many did they poll?

I won’t forget the case where they returned a very neglected child to an alcoholic, sex offender father as opposed to the child’s drug addicted, less functional mother. When it’s a toss up between an alcoholic and a drug addict, the court should have been considering foster care. Child protection services were up in arms over the ruling, probably due to their history with both parents, but the court cannot be budged.

This is the failure of the system.

Eric says:

04:08pm | 08/09/10

Jaime, look at the comment by Chris, below. The statistics you demand are there.

However, I suspect you won’t acknowledge the reality, being locked into your misandrist and ignorant ways.

Jaime says:

04:47pm | 08/09/10

Eric, I saw the comment and replied to it as well. You reply to my comments but I notice you tend to avoid most of my points raised. What kind of debate is this?

Let me make it clear that I am not at all blinded by the belief that women are paragons of beauty and do no wrong. I absolutely believe that child abusers are not limited to just one group of people, to one gender.

At the same time, I do not believe in extremist viewpoints. I do not believe that women are usually the wrongdoers simply because they’re women.

Which is more than I can say about you. We have all encountered enough comments from you to know that you think all men are persecuted and single mothers are the result of their own actions, dumping men and running away with the kids. (Because men are never in the wrong)

Before pointing your finger at me, have you actually really gone through some self introspection and considered that you have issues that disallow you from looking at any picture objectively? I won’t even call you a misogynist because I think your issues might be more serious than that.

This whole thing has ticked me off because child abuse and society’s lack of responsibility is such an important matter that needs attention but as usual, you are appropriating it for your own agenda. Well done. Selfless as always.

Michael J says:

03:06pm | 08/09/10

@dw You equate smacking with child abuse.  Many people do not agree with that opinion.  Certainly smacking *can* be abuse, when it is done violently and/or excessively.  I am of the opinion that it can applied judiciously it can be effective and constructive.  This is particularly so with smaller children who cannot engage in a rational discussion about behaviour.

I smacked my children when they were small.  It rarely, if ever, needed after age seven or eight. 

Abuse is a dreadful problem, but let’s not confuse abuse with discipline.

dw says:

03:41pm | 08/09/10

we are actually in agreement. but it would be even more interesting if Rosanna would define smacking as abuse or discipline.

You may be aware of someone who smacks their children - but you don’t call the authorities because you see it as ‘discipline’. It is behaviour that you condone. Others may see it as abusive. Rosanna seems to advocate that we ‘get involved’ to make sure that the child is safe.

I am merely offering a suggestion as to why the public is reluctant to ring the authorities.

Eric says:

03:30pm | 08/09/10

Sue, of course Ariel’s comment doesn’t mention mothers as abusers. That is the dirty secret that NAPCAN and others sweep under the carpet.

Just look at the statistics and references provided by Chris in the comment below. Why is this truth being covered up by people who claim to be acting in the best interests of children?

Ja says:

04:20pm | 08/09/10

Derailment of the topic at hand again. I’m starting to believe that to Eric, T’Chong and Chris, child welfare is not as important as pushing their agenda.

The topic here is that a large number of people will ignore and not report child abuse because they don’t believe it is their problem. Majority believe children are the responsibility of the parents and no one else. The gender of the abuser doesn’t even come into play.

Despite your derailment, I will address something because you were the only one who provided data.

“More than 70 percent (71.0%) of child fatalities were caused by one or more parents.5 More than one-quarter (26.6%) of fatalities were perpetrated by the mother acting alone.6 Child fatalities with unknown or missing perpetrator relationship data accounted for 17.3 percent.”

What is the statistics for fatalities perpetrated by the father? Why did you leave that out?

Other than that, when it came to analysis of all your stats, did they include details on whether the women and men were single and struggling to cope? Did they include the reasons that Eric has been pushing in several articles now: that most young women get pregnant and then get a divorce and force the fathers never see the kids before abusing said kids because women are naturally evil that way? Or did it also include reasons like young teenage pregnancies/unknown father/husband left them and cannot be found/husband passed away/etc? Did it include details on the family welfare?

I’m not here to make a stance that women don’t abuse their children. I’m not blind that way. But I am here to say that with all statistics, you need to do analytical work rather than just throwing numbers around.

Eric says:

04:52pm | 08/09/10

Ja, the fact is that to most campaigners in the mainstream, child abuse is not as important as pushing their anti-male agenda.

That’s why the reality that mothers are responsible for the majority of child abuse gets swept under the carpet. Instead, some organisations support the indoctrination of schoolchildren with the idea that men are evil predators - which, in my opinion, is itself a form of psychological abuse.

Jaime says:

06:02pm | 08/09/10

Eric, I have said it before and I’ll say it again. It’s really hard to take what you say seriously when you accuse people of pushing anti-male agenda since you go around pushing an anti-female agenda.

I push an anti-sexist agenda, against all genders. I abhor women who push the idea that men are evil, equally I abhor men who say the same about women.

I know people who have been abused by their fathers and I know people who have been abused by their mothers. In their cases, it really didn’t matter whether it was the father who did it or the mother who did it. Neither got reported.

This is an article about ‘Why does society not care?’  This article had nothing whatsoever to do with Men vs Women abusing children. But you and Chris and T’Chong have turned it into one and in your case, this is far from being the first time.

Chris says:

01:56am | 09/09/10

“Derailment of the topic at hand again. I’m starting to believe that to Eric, T’Chong and Chris, child welfare is not as important as pushing their agenda.”

Wrong.

Only feminists, judges, lawyers and court-appointed “psychologists” place ideology and agenda ahead of children’s welfare.

Feminist ideology is based on an absurd, unsubstantiated theory that polarises the sexes: it argues that men to be are abusive and in a position of power over women, and;  women are assumed to be abused and powerless in all areas of life. This means a militant feminist will always oppose anything that disproves this moronic, unsubstantiated theory of feminism. When you take into consideration that a lot of feminists work for governmental departments that are funded by the tax payer (socialism), it’s easy to see that they’ll tell any old lie and reject reality if it means they’ll keep their jobs.

Judges are reluctant to do anything that’ll jeopardise their position. Arguing against feminist policies is career suicide for judges. An ex-judge from America testified to this fact.

Lawyers will follow the easiest path to victory. This usually means going with whatever is accepted by the hysterical masses.

Court-appointed psychologists make a fortune out of siding with mothers and deriding fathers. They do it because the psychology is overly gynocentric and heavily influenced by feminism.

Sorry buddy, but these are facts that are obvious to anyone who has been out in the real world. The fact they’ve gone right over your head says everything we need to know about your objectivity.

6c legs says:

05:30pm | 08/09/10

Thankyou HTPM!

Instead of trolling every Punch story trying to derail as many threads into Men vs Women, and just looking to play Judge Dred, how about commentators stick to the POINT of the article?

But with so many media outlets now being run by the Conservative machine that don’t believe in Society anyway, I can’t help wonder why they even bother recognising that it even is Child Protection Week?
Or is it that they’re more interested in the hits a site get in the Man vs Woman rubbish?

“It takes a village to raise a child” - so that means You, Me, Everyone needs to open their eyes and put any child that they suspect of being in danger Rights above our own ‘don’t wanna get involved’ selves.  It also means that governments need to spend more money protecting them because it’s in the Countries *best interests* to do so!

Or, of course we could just go back to stuffing children from disadvantaged families into Institutions, and let the churches look after them, so that we don’t have to see them or worry about them. And then the trolls on this site can all have (another) a feel good day in 30, 40 years when another Government Apologises on behalf of Society for the atrocities they suffered as children, that led to dysfunctional (expensive for the rest of society) adult lives.

The child being abused that society ignores today is the Adult welfare recipient tomorrow. But the money spent on the child will be minuscule compared to the amount of financial harm the adult will have on society.

Thank you to the author and all who work to help children.

Chris says:

07:35pm | 11/09/10

Karl,

“`Reported’ cases have a huge question mark over them as all agencies involved with children are now mandatorily required to report their `suspicions’ of child abuse,  which may in many cases have been made for mistaken, mischievous, and malicious reasons.”

Are you referring to the false accusations that are made by one spouse against another? If so, then I think you’re fighting a losing battle. Women are more likely than men to falsely accuse their spouse of committing child abuse—most crimes of deceit </i>are</i> perpetrated by women. Go to the Australian Bureau of Statistics so you can see for yourself. Some divorce lawyers encourage female clients to make false accusations against their spouse because judges routinely believe women at their word.

ps. I really hope you and your mates don’t pass this off as “misogynistic crap”. The reason I say this is because the argument you’ve used—that only the court is in a position to know the truth about child abuse accusations—can be used to support the claim that women routinely file false accusations against men. A former state prosecutor from Coloraro, Craig Silverman, said a large amount of the rape cases he came across in court were false. He went on to say that any honest prosecutor would tell you that around 40% of rape accusations are false. If women lie about that, then there’s no reason to think they won’t lie about child abuse.

“Those cases recorded by State Child Protection social work agencies claiming to be `substantiated’ are only the opinions of social workers based on limited inquiries and not subject to challenge and counter-explanation. The only figures to have real meaning are those where children were placed under Protection Orders or in State Care by Children’s Courts and/or where parents were charged and proven in Criminal Courts.”

There isn’t a great deal of difference between a court decision and a social worker’s opinion. Unless there’s video footage or an audio recording to substantiate the allegation, then the prosecution will never know for sure whether the accused is guilty or not. The “experts” you talk about don’t have a foolproof formula that’ll determine the truth. A criminal trial that lacks damning video footage and audio recordsings will rely upon a) the accuser’s testimony b) the accused proving he/she could not have performed the act (some times this is possible to prove, other times it isn’t) and c) a few subjective interpretations from so-called “experts” who did not witness the alleged incident. These “experts” you talk of are the same sort of people who’ve wrongly convinced people they were molested.

Criminal cases are often decided in favour of the party that has a) the better reputation or b)  the most competent lawyer. An innocent person who is represented by a dud lawyer can end up looking guilty if he/she is up against a pro.

As for the bolded text. Looking at the amount of protective orders that are handed out won’t reveal the truth. Why? Because protective orders are handed out for all sorts of farcical reasons when a woman accuses a man of doing something terrible. A perfect example is the case of some nutjob vs David Letterman. The nutjob accused David Letterman of sending abusive subliminal messages to her during his television program. The judge accepted her request.

Please tell me, what makes you think that a “legal challenge” and “counter-explanation” from a lawyer/judge/psychologist are that much more realiable than a social worker’s opinion?