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Dom Post Idiotorial on Child Abuse

Today's Dominion Post Idiotorial on child abuse shows very clearly why editors prefer to hide behind total anonymity.

"One idea that should be explored is mandatory reporting...even though there is a risk that good parents are falsely accused...even though there is a risk abusers will not seek medical help for their victims to prevent being caught.."

Before we dissect this Orwellian directive let's pause for the obligatory inversion of moral principles:

"New Zealanders need to accept that it is better for 10 good parents to come under scrutiny than for one monster to be allowed to continue inflicting the worst cruelty"

Aside from the rush to embrace the modern principles of political correctness before justice, the casualness of the use of the word "scrutiny" is the thing to note here. Because "scrutiny" means an army of social workers arriving on the doorstep to accuse good parents of being very good at hiding their presumed evil. "Scrutiny" means removing children from their home as a precautionary measure during the investigative phases. Phases which draw out from weeks to months due to the case overload created by mandatory reporting.

And when a father gets angry at these state backed kidnappers, and threatens the kidnapper with violence (a natural reaction I would suggest), it will only reinforce the fact that this crusader for children is right to place the children in permanent state care. A recent short documentary by Family First cataloging such crimes of the state make this quite clear.

The irony continues. Even though mandatory reporting and scrutinising (terrorising would be a better word) 10 out of 11 good parents to ensure social services pay a visit in the dark hours of the night, the idiotorialist confesses the futility of it all:

There have been too many cases of at-risk children being abused, despite welfare and law enforcement authorities being in regular contact with them

But that's just one or two over-worked person's misjudgment, surely?

In one case, a nine-year-old Auckland girl suffered a horrific ordeal despite a dozen agencies working with her family.

So mandatory reporting isn't the panacea it's meant to be then?

And what of mandatory reporting? This is where teachers, doctors, and others are required to detect possible abuse and report on it rather than ignore it. Because if they do not, they will themselves be punished. This is the idiotorialist's Orwellian blueprint for a child safe society.

With mandatory reporting there is little downside to the reporter of reporting anything and everything, and much danger in reporting nothing, even if nothing is seen.

In the inevitable court case it will be trotted out how this particular doctor who contributed to the death of a little tot by the hands of some-one else, has consistently failed to report more than the national average of abuse reports. So now the Doctor must be punished. The State does not rely on people to use their judgment, it does not rely on people to do their best, it must punish all but those that work directly for the State.

In that kind of society, even anonymous editors will not be protected from their cheer-leading for the destruction of 10 good families.

Comments

  1. Mandatory reporting carries the implicit assumption that all doctors are either too lazy or too scared to report suspected child abuse. This is complete garbage.

    Child abuse is notoriously difficult to spot, even in an emergency department, where child trauma gravitates. It is practically impossible to spot in a GP practice. Even social workers visiting potentially abusive families miss signs of abuse all the time, as in the Nia Glassie case.

    Mandatory reporting is the government's not-very-subtle attempt to shift blame for not preventing child abuse onto professionals

    ReplyDelete
  2. Agreed. It is not only an idiotic response, it's a damaging response for the reasons I outlined above.

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