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Why is child abuse such a political and social hot potatoe?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
i just don't understand why so many people don't want to talk about it, i.e. making new child protection policies, putting in new laws safe guarding the futures of adult survivors and child
Why hasn't the children's act been re-written since 1989? why haven't the various side acts also been completely revised? such as the leaving care act, the every child matters (do they fuck? in the eyes of the goverment?), children at risk (i'm sorry, i'm not as up on the other parts of the act other than the leaving care act which i know inside out). society has changed a hell of a lot in 8/9 years since the leaving care act was introduced, yet alone nearly 20 years since the children's act was put into place? ok, they may have had small additions put into place, but all these acts and policies need complete rewriting.
It seems that everyone- the layman and the MPs- are all for damning the perportrators, and the people who let individual cases down, but thats only when something drastic like a death happens. Why aren't people asking why the system let these kids down, why aren't people talking about the policies which are outdated, and vague. Why don't smaller cases hit the headline? when kids don't die?
This is something i'm really passionate about, and i've heard so many stories about some horrendous things happening, and they don't hit the news headlines. I know a girl who when pregnant, was placed in a foster home her sister had been abused in, she subsequently went missing with the baby, and has since been put into a secure unit, and had her baby taken away from her and he is now up for adoption. Many kids that are so emotionally damaged are never properly rehabilitated, instead they are placed in these secure units- which are like prisons, but somewhat worse, i've visited someone very briefly in one- and left there until they are 18 or 21, when they are left to there own devices. this is where they completely disappear, end up homeless, in prison, or worse.
child abuse is all over the news, its even in the lastest eastenders storyline, yet people won't sit down and talk about supporting survivors and how to tackle it within their communities, not MPs, not community leaders, no one wants to talk about it. I know its a difficult subject and has affected many people, but surely that makes it more important to deal with?
Why hasn't the children's act been re-written since 1989? why haven't the various side acts also been completely revised? such as the leaving care act, the every child matters (do they fuck? in the eyes of the goverment?), children at risk (i'm sorry, i'm not as up on the other parts of the act other than the leaving care act which i know inside out). society has changed a hell of a lot in 8/9 years since the leaving care act was introduced, yet alone nearly 20 years since the children's act was put into place? ok, they may have had small additions put into place, but all these acts and policies need complete rewriting.
It seems that everyone- the layman and the MPs- are all for damning the perportrators, and the people who let individual cases down, but thats only when something drastic like a death happens. Why aren't people asking why the system let these kids down, why aren't people talking about the policies which are outdated, and vague. Why don't smaller cases hit the headline? when kids don't die?
This is something i'm really passionate about, and i've heard so many stories about some horrendous things happening, and they don't hit the news headlines. I know a girl who when pregnant, was placed in a foster home her sister had been abused in, she subsequently went missing with the baby, and has since been put into a secure unit, and had her baby taken away from her and he is now up for adoption. Many kids that are so emotionally damaged are never properly rehabilitated, instead they are placed in these secure units- which are like prisons, but somewhat worse, i've visited someone very briefly in one- and left there until they are 18 or 21, when they are left to there own devices. this is where they completely disappear, end up homeless, in prison, or worse.
child abuse is all over the news, its even in the lastest eastenders storyline, yet people won't sit down and talk about supporting survivors and how to tackle it within their communities, not MPs, not community leaders, no one wants to talk about it. I know its a difficult subject and has affected many people, but surely that makes it more important to deal with?
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MP's can jump up and down and be outraged and sound important, and say things like 'this must never happen again' and look serious and up to date.
Except of course that much like drugs the issue is massively complex and there isnt any real political will to put the time, money and effort into addressing the issue.
Most sensible people know that properly investing in Social Services would save us money in the long run but its not a vote winner. And most people who've had even a passing glance at the figures will know why social workers dont want to put kids into care.
Let's take an example - the Baby P case. When I found out about a baby whose back had been broken, whose fingernails had been ripped out, who had the living shit beaten out of him, who ended up swallowing one of his teeth after being punched in the mouth by those disgusting feral monsters whose names are currently protected by a court injunction, I was bloody angry. I felt physically sick after reading those reports - show me a person who felt nothing after reading them, and I'll show you a liar. I would be shocked if anyone attempted to say that it was somehow wrong for me to feel like that.
Millions of other people felt the same way - hence why the issue was raised in Parliament. (although our emotionally defective PM felt the need to accuse the Tories of party politics over the issue) Hence why millions have logged onto websites such as Facebook demanding that heads roll over the issue. I've seen grown men and women actually crying when they read about it. I have never seen people so angry about one issue before. Some people have shamefully attempted to claim that what happened to Baby P has somehow been exaggerated by the press for their own purposes. Really? It wasn't the press that beat the living shit out of a defenceless baby, was it?
As for why the media don't report other cases, it's mainly because of legal reasons. Social services are more than happy to go to court whenever the media attempts to prints some stories, and courts are more than willing to provide injunctions banning them from publishing.
and i'm not saying they should report all incidents....
Same reason why child abuse memoirs have their own shelf in WHSmith. Sensationalist stuff sells.
Aye, that makes sense. And Clementine is right. It's just sick. Humans are sick. Which is why I fucking hate journalism. Hate newspapers. They feed on all that's wrong with us and turn it into sensationalist stories, sparking rage in people. It's just anger mongering.
Think of all the accounts of Baby P. Most will say fuck all about what actually went on, but will outline the brutal torments the poor child went through and will highlight ridiculous non sequiturs about how the mother was obese and had never had a job.
Would you care to explain how the fact his mother was a lazy slob who spent all day looking at pornography and living in absolute filth has nothing to do with Baby P's demise? And why shouldn't the media detail to us the horrific things this baby went through?
Maybe not for much longer, sales of misery memoirs have dropped by about 30%, people dont want to read them at the moment.
And it's not really much of a story to say "a man from London was in court accused of abusing his daughter".
Also, some of the cases involving family courts and care orders are behind closed doors.
That's not how the Times put it though. They actually just mentioned, completely irrelevantly that she was obese and had never had a job. That's not what made her do what she did. The way it was written suggested that we should think upon obese and unemployed people as somehow morally inferior. It was also written because somehow suggesting these things contributed to the horrible image we should have of the mother.
The horrible image we have of the mother should be about her actions and her neglect towards the child, not towards her eating habits.
Probably because they can just read the papers.
The fact that the stepfather (who can't be legally named) collected Nazi memorobilia and was a member of the National Front tells us quite a lot about him, don't you think?
Yes, but being obese doesn't make you immoral. Nor does never having a job. In this situation, yes, maybe these factors contributed somewhere or mean something about the mother, but the Times but it forward as something that should apply to any obese or unemployed person.
There's a link to it somewhere on the boards...was in the Baby P thread. It was a Times online thing.
"The overweight woman, who had never had a full-time job and spent hours trawling the internet for pornography"
From the link you posted on your thread about Baby P.
Surely it suffices that the woman spent all her time looking at porn.
The way that this is written, I feel, is irrelevant, merely details used by journalists to provoke anger or disgust.
It clearly worked.
As for journalists attempting to provoke anger over this case, it would be impossible for them to stoke things up even if they tried. Every sane person is going to be disgusted when they hear that a baby was used like a punching bag, when they hear that a baby used to kneel down on the floor like a dog when the stepfather came into the room. Just about everyone thinks that these people are lowlife scum, and the press shouldn't pull their punches in saying it.
The point I was making in the first place isn't anything to do with the Baby P case. It's about journalism.
I'm not defending anything that went on surrounding Baby P and if you think that I am then you are very sorely mistaken and making an argument because you want to.
So I'll say it again. The point I was making was about sensationalism and the way that journalism seeks to evoke certain feelings and thoughts from an audience without getting to the real problem itself.
I wish I had an answer to that question, because these really are issues that need to be addressed.
I think it's not as well publicised or as readily available as other means of finding help. Also, as a child (at least from my own experience) you reason that it's nothing worth telling any one about. It's too hard as a child to seek help for something like this. Child abuse campaigns reach out too much towards adults more than children. And unless you've been raped, it might seem that there's nothing worth reporting.
It really is.