When is State Intervention in Child-Related Matters Justified ? The UK’s proposed “Cinderella Law”. Tim Veater.
When
is State Intervention in Child-Related Matters Justified ? The UK’s
proposed “Cinderella Law”. Tim Veater.
Further
to the article by Julia Gasper here
(http://inquiringminds.cc/uk-thought-policing-julia-gasper)
I
was recently forwarded a video, painful to watch, of a small Asian
child being
mistreated
by presumably his (?) mother that will appal any parent or
right-minded
person. It may be viewed here (1) but it comes with a warning not
to
watch it if you may be disturbed by such things. It is to be hoped in
passing,
that its circulation is justified in order that this woman will be
identified
in due course and the child protected from further cruelty. It is a
shocking
example of child abuse from which every child should, by every means
possible
be protected.
This
is not an easy task, for seldom is the abuse public. If and when it
is, I
believe
we all have a moral duty to intervene despite a natural reticence to
do
so.
However signs of abuse, either physical or emotional, usually are
public,
and
particularly to those with professional skills in the nursery and
primary
education
sectors, and to medical staff, if the child appears in casualty or
doctors
surgery.
“Abuse”
has a number of definitions and applications, the most important here
being
“Treat with cruelty or violence, especially regularly or
repeatedly;
assault
(someone, especially a woman or child) sexually;
use
or treat in such a way as to cause damage or harm; speak to (someone)
in an
insulting
and offensive way.” (OED)
Latest
figures suggest about three children die every week from extreme
abuse or
neglect
and of course this is indicative of a much bigger underlying issue
issue.
(2) “Problem families” are well known to Social Services
Departments,
where
neglect or abuse may be more likely but not exclusively so.
Intervention
against
this group may be more common for historic social reasons, whether
truly
deserved
or not although the phenomenon of family break-down and break-up has
extended
the reach of social services departments into the middle classes, if
children
are part of the subsequent dispute. Working class families may
attract
disproportionate
attention from the authorities because it is easier to do so.
No
one can blame social workers for not intervening if unaware. What is
frankly
inexplicable
and inexcusable is inaction to save or protect a child where
unassailable
evidence is presented. A number of notorious cases are reviewed
here
(3) where an obvious professional failure was observed.
Social
workers walk a precarious tight rope between intervention and
non-intervention
and neither are free of pitfalls. A child removed unnecessarily
can
be as bad as not doing so when required, so a high bar should be
rightly set
before
the role of the parent is usurped by the state and its organs. Bad
practice
in both cases has been demonstrated in recent years, that is where
officialdom
failed to act where it undoubtedly should have, or acted
unnecessarily
where it shouldn’t, not helped by the secret character of the
family
courts as recently criticised by Lord Justice Munby in a specific
case.(4)
There
is no room here for personal vendettas or private agendas or for
current
trendy
obsessions around sexual orientation or gender. Unfortunately
there are
those
in society who perversely use the extreme case to make their own far
less
convincing
one and to advance a very narrow agenda. The proposed “Cinderella”
legislation
and the groups pushing it appear to be but a latest example with
sinister
overtones. (5)
Norms
of attitude that have served quite well for generations are being
hi-jacked
and subverted for, it would appear, politically correct social ends.
A
process
of slipping through legislation that is neither justified or required
under
the umbrella of emotive reasoning that is hard to challenge, appears
to be
an
increasingly common and disreputable tactic. It was tried with the
police
power
to detain and succeeded in relation to controlling dissent prior to
elections.
We see that communities are to be bribed to accept infringements over
trespass
law to allow fracking to go ahead unhindered. No doubt we could cite
many
more. Such an approach needs to be robustly challenged and resisted.
We
want good parenting and we want the state to intervene if a child is
truly
being
harmed or endangered but we want it to stay clear from families just
coping
with the normal psychological stresses and strains. To achieve this
the
criteria
of “harm” needs to be strictly defined to prevent unnecessary
interference
into family life. Broad unspecific, all encompassing ones entail
real
dangers for society, the family unit and most particularly the
children
themselves.
Why? Because the state has proved to be an indifferent, unreliable,
even
abusive “parent” itself.
Childhood
has always been a hazardous time. Pre-19th Century children took
their
chances
determined by their parent’s economic and social status and
environment.
(6)
With industrialisation the role and fate of children became a big
social and
political
issue particularly as regards their education and occupation -
affecting
particularly the poor of course. The 18th Century saw Hogarth’s Gin
Lane,
(7) the 19th Century Bentham/Chadwick Poor Law reform, (8) Sadler and
Dickens
(9) and many others pleading for child protection. The period sees
the
appearance
of philanthropy by people like George Muller in Bristol and Barnardo
in
London to whom literally thousands of children in the last two
centuries owe
their
survival. (10) Perhaps it should be noted in these days when it is
fashionable
to mock and criticise religion in general and Christianity in
particular,
that these and other invaluable initiatives were born of sincere and
deep
belief. It is not clear whether they would have happened
without it.
One
in five children generally did not survive the first five years and
rates of
death
for orphans were were much higher. Orphans became a financial
liability
on
the vestry and this led to thousands being packed off to the
factories of the
north
as soon as physically possible, leading to all the social evils it
entailed,
despite the many enlightened initiatives by Wilfred Owen and others.
(11)
Ah
you may say that was a long time ago, surely you cannot hold the
State
accountable
for such ancient failures? But wait, how about the mass export of
children
to Australia in the 1950′s detailed here, (12) or how even into the
nineteen
sixties children were forcibly removed from unmarried mothers and
never
seen
again, or how governments turned a blind eye or were actively
involved in
the
sexual abuse of children in state or church run children’s homes,
the
details
of which are still emerging? (13)
For
further proof as to the relative failure of State v. Conventional
Family on
the
child-rearing front we may look no further than the state prison
system, in
which
there are now at any one time nearly one hundred thousand persons
ensconced.
(97,000) This figure is an all-time high and about five times as many
as
the figure throughout the 30′s, 40′s and 50′s despite
increasing affluence
and
a 10% increase in population. (14)
Amazingly
in a recent study, despite just one per cent of children in the
care
system,
more than a quarter (27%) of those in prison were in care as children
and
over HALF of all prisoners under 25, had been in local
authority care. (15)
This
would appear to suggest that rather than getting better, things are
getting
worse.
According to the NSPCC, in 2013 there were 92.000 children “in
care” in
the
UK. Of 28,850 of the children who started to be looked after in
England
during
the year 1 April 2012 to 31 March 2013, 56% were because of
abuse or
neglect.
(16) This is an historically high figure, influenced no doubt by the
baby
Peter Connolly case.
So
what may we conclude from all this? The state has an atrocious record
on
outcomes,
where it intervenes to “protect” children/ It therefore should
always
be
regarded as a solution of last resort. The state should only
intervene where,
beyond
peradventure, this is in the interest of the child. Given the above
figures
(and we haven’t even considered accidents, disappearance, self
harm,
suicide,
drug and alcohol abuse, social and psychological problems) the bar
has
to
be set high for the removal of a child and should never stray into
marginal
areas
of faith, belief or attitudes.
Conversely
local authorities must always intervene robustly where a child is
seen
to be injured in suspicious circumstances or otherwise abused by
adults,
again
where it has historically failed miserably.
Social
Workers and Police cannot right all the ills of society, the
prevailing
ethos
of which we are all responsible for and for which many of the family
problem
issues can be attributed. They can however apply common sense and
humanity
to a difficult area. act when there is real need and keep out when
there
isn’t, within a culture of as much openness consistent with the
need to
protect
the persons concerned.
“Institutions”,
even including educational ones, have been proved positively
hazardous
in many cases and have to be either avoided or treated with the
caution
they deserve. The fact that boarding schools can work well and
produce
sensible,
balanced adults, should encourage us to be optimistic. Whether Mr
Gove,
fortunate enough to be adopted by a good family when still a small
child,
and
now entrusted with the education system of the country, is evidence
of
optimism
or pessimism for the future, has not as yet, been definitively
determined.
Having
and bringing up a family can be a messy ill defined business. We can
all
wish
we had done better. However what is statistically and socially clear,
that
even
imperfect families do better at rearing children than does the state.
The
state
therefore is a safety net not a preferable option. That does not mean
it
should
not strive to do better but the main emphasis should be directed
towards
stable
family structures and discouraging procreation in their absence.
Parenting
knowledge, attitudes and skills should be part of the education
process,
with an emphasis on attachment and commitment rather than transient
self
fulfilment sexually or otherwise.
Children
need love and attachment to a family for emotional stability even if
they
later choose to reject it, something an amorphous government agency
can
never
provide. END.
REFERENCES.
1.
Violence to small Asian child. Warning! Do not watch if easily upset
by such
cruel
behaviour. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10202926033664073&set=vb.1600029540&type=2&theater
2.http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/research/briefings/child_killings_in_england_and_wales_wda67213.html
According
to this report, in the 17-month period to the end of August 2008
local
authorities
in England notified Ofsted of 424 serious incidents involving the
deaths
of 282 children. This equates to 199 annually, or almost four
children
each
week. Since publication of this report, Ofsted has clarified that 210
of
these
deaths, i.e. three each week, were actually attributable to abuse or
neglect
(Gilbert, 2008). This is still higher than the NSPCC’s
estimate of at
least
one child a week, but it must be borne in mind that the figures
stem from
very
different, albeit complementary, sources of data and are in fact not
contradictory.
3.
A number of notorious cases
listed: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/baby-p/7527795/Ryan-Lovell-Hancox-worst-cases-of-child-abuse.html
4. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10530850/Lord-Justice-Munby-probes-court-secrecy.html
6.
Child death
rates: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1633559/
8.
Edwin chadwick and Poor law
reform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Chadwick
9.
Michael Thomas Sadler and factory
reformhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Thomas_Sadler
10.
Barnardo’s Homes http://www.barnardos.org.uk/barnardo_s_history.pdf
12.
Child migration to Australia and South
Africa http://www.childmigrantstrust.com/our-work/child-migration-history
13.
Institutional
Abuse: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/child-abuse-scandal–the-bryn-estyn-home-wasnt-fit-for-children–it–has-made-my-life-since-leaving-a-complete-misery-1306165.html
14.
Prison
population: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_prison_population
;
For historical comparison
seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_prison_population
UK
Population Graph: http://chartsbin.com/view/28k
15.
Prison/Care
Statistics:https://fullfact.org/factchecks/were_quarter_prisoners_in_care_as_children-28547
UPDATE: FB 4.3.16
Tim
Veater Sexual
attraction and activity is hard wired into human physiology and
psychology and evolves progressively with age. It cannot and does not
just switch-on at a certain age and therefore we must attempt and
come to terms with the reality - whatever that might be. Of course
humans are not unique in this regard. They share sex with all plants
and animals to various degrees that also determine what is possible
and acceptable. The two must be distinguished. In human affairs this
also applies. What is possible is not always socially and/or
ethically and/or legally acceptable. Hopefully we base legal, and
particularly criminal, rules on rational thought rather than
emotional, although the latter is almost always involved. Humans
share much in common with animals even in the emotional sphere but
have a more advanced intellectual palette that enables deductive,
inductive and abductive reasoning that has spawned our present
technological world. It also involves moral/ethical judgements. There
are often inconsistencies between theory and practice in this regard.
There are also differences between cultures. It raises the question
as to whether moral parameters are objective or subjective? What I
think is non-negotiable in the realm of sexual conduct, is the
principle of 'consent' but even this can give rise to problems.
Apologies for 'going on'.
