Exposing the Real Culprit
As the country struggles to come to terms with
the extent of New Zealand’s child abuse problem
and what can be done about it, the real culprits
have remained hidden.
The worst child abusers in the country are the
government. Successive governments have put in
place social policies that have created the very
conditions in which child abuse flourishes:
whole communities
in which the two-parent family has vanished,
where work is rare or non-existent, and where
multiple generations have grown up relying on
welfare. This disintegration of family and
values has resulted in severe social
pathologies, deprivation, squalor, crime and
violence.
Just this week, South Auckland social service
agencies working at the coalface of the child
abuse crisis spoke openly of benefit money being
spent on alcohol and drugs instead of food and
clothing for children; of parents deciding to
separate to get more welfare;
of the system discouraging
fathers from taking responsibility for their
children; of young mothers
having to lock their bedroom doors at night to
keep themselves and their babies safe - from
their brothers who are their baby’s fathers –
but who are afraid to report serious illegal
activities in the home for fear the police will
involve CYFs and their babies will be taken off
them…
Other governments in other countries have had
the courage to admit that their social policies
have created a dysfunctional underclass where
children are no longer safe. As a result they
have changed the policies that caused the
problem.
But even though our problems are bigger than
most, our Government remains defiant, turning a
blind eye to their own culpability.
Meanwhile, the State continues to pay girls and
women with little education, few prospects, and
without stable partners, to have and raise
children on their own, even though the evidence
is overwhelming that child abuse most often
occurs in single parent families on welfare.
The State then
ensures that the fathers - the traditional
protectors of children - don’t stick around,
by threatening to stop the mother’s welfare
payments and to prosecute her if the dad gets
too involved in her family.
Further, even though marriage is well proven to
be the best guarantee that children have of
growing up safely and well, the State
mercilessly undermines it. It makes welfare
payments so generous that marriage has become
unaffordable for most low-income parents who can
now make far more money by being on welfare.
Just recently we saw how the families of the
murdered twins Chris and Cru Kahui reportedly
had upwards of two thousand dollars of benefit
money coming into the homes each week.
Labour has also undermined marriage legally by
introducing laws, which give cohabiting partners
the same legal privileges as a married couple.
The result is that more and more young people
are now saying, “why bother getting married?”
(An excellent article on this subject has just
been written by Melanie Philips; you can read,
“Why Labour Despises the Family” by clicking on
the sidebar link>>>)
To further create an environment in which child
abuse flourishes, the State herds struggling
solo mothers into state housing areas where
fatherhood scarcely exists, where there are few
role models of anyone who works for a living,
and where children view truancy, delinquency and
crime as commonplace.
Worse, with its ideological rejection of school
vouchers – a scholarship system which enables
children to be better educated - the State
denies these illiterate and dysfunctional
youngsters access to educators who can turn
their lives around. Instead, they are forced
into the nearest State school to fail. The end
result is something that we should all fear, as
this week’s NZCPD guest commentary “The Crime
Within” - a recent Otago Daily Times editorial –
explains (click the sidebar link to view>>>).
But rather than despair about the human misery
caused by Government policies, we should demand
they take action to turn the situation around.
The solutions are clear: throughout the world,
Governments that really care about children are
reforming welfare.
Just this week in the Economist, an article
entitled “Tough Love Works” (click the sidebar
link to view >>>) reflects on the outstanding
success of American reforms that ended sole
parent welfare entitlements:
“A decade ago, Americans began a bold social
experiment. In August 1996, Bill Clinton signed
into law the bill that introduced 'welfare to
work'. From that point, poor families could no
longer claim welfare indefinitely as an
entitlement. Instead, parents had to find a job.
“Ten years on… America's welfare rolls have
fallen by over half as existing claimants have
found work and fewer people have gone on benefit
in the first place. Furthermore, there has been
no upsurge in the poverty rate; in fact, it has
fallen over the period.
"Welfare reform was once regarded as a harsh,
right-wing, America-only idea. But an unexpected
lesson of the past ten years is that it enjoys
much wider political appeal. Within America, its
success has silenced the former fierce
opposition of left-wing Democrats, which Mr
Clinton had overruled. For the Labour government
in Britain and for social democrats in Europe,
reform offers a way to reintegrate people who
would otherwise live in a welfare apartheid.
Furthermore, it is a way to defend generous
support for the poor - as long as they find
work. Another attraction for developed countries
as their populations age is that it mobilises
more employment to maintain living standards and
help pay for the old. And, best of all, it
works”.
The reforms were based on the principle that
families are better off if parents work, so
open-ended sole parent benefits were replaced
with support and services that lead to jobs. In
order to encourage teenagers to postpone
parenting and complete their education, cash
payments and housing assistance to teenage
parents were stopped, although schooling, life
skills training, career guidance, and child-care
are all readily available to help young parents
prepare for an independent future.
In public policy, you get what you pay for. If
our Government did its job and changed the
incentives in the welfare system to
reinforce work, family,
and independence, the record
levels of child abuse and neglect that each year
breaks our hearts, would finally – and
thankfully - begin to be a thing of the past.
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