In response to the recently aired investigative news report on child abuse fatalities in the United States by the BBC, I want to call attention to the importance of child advocacy in the U.S. This issue deserves our attention now more than ever before.
This multimedia, 22-minute story, entitled "America's Death Shame," began airing Monday, Oct. 17 on BBC World News affiliates, including PBS and NPR stations in most American cities. The focus of the broadcast is on the magnitude of child abuse -- and particularly child-abuse-related deaths -- in America. The underlying sense of shock at the enormity of this problem is apparent throughout the broadcast and serves as a powerful reminder that this is not the norm anywhere else in the industrialized world and should not be accepted as such in the United States.
One statistic cited in the report states that 66 children under the age of 15 die from physical abuse or neglect every week in the industrialized world, and of those, 27 die in the U.S. -- the highest number of any other country. How is it, the report asks, that every five hours a child dies from abuse or neglect in America? How is it that America has the worst child abuse record in the industrialized world?
To understand the issue, the BBC examined Texas, one of the states with the highest total number of child deaths from abuse and neglect in the U.S. In 2009, the rate of deaths from child abuse In Texas was 4.05 per 100,000 children -- as compared to 2.46 per 100,000 children in New York (as noted in "America's Death Shame"). The BBC interviewed Texas Child Protective Services workers, law enforcement officials, doctors and lawyers, and even spent time at the Houston Child Assessment Center, a Children's Advocacy Center fully accredited by the National Children's Alliance. The findings were startling, and sadly, they are not uncommon in communities across the country.
This is familiar territory for our organization and for the thousands of individuals who assist in fulfilling our mission every day; however, what the BBC report brings to light are connections that are all too often ignored. For example, the report draws a connection between Texas' low rate of removal of children from the home, and the state's high child death rate as a result of abuse. The report also questions the premise of the federal mandate of family reunification, under which all federally funded child protection agencies operate (as noted in "America's Death Shame").
It is our opinion, and that of many of our colleagues in the Children's Advocacy Center arena, that a strong social safety net can mean the difference between life and death for a child. The truth is, child death resulting from abuse and neglect is a preventable problem. In support of the BBC's stance, to achieve maximum prevention, we must focus on the following strategies:
The BBC report takes us one step closer to our goal by presenting an opportunity to start and enhance the conversation in local communities. I encourage readers to share links to the report and the accompanying radio interviews -- helping to break the silence and protect our children on a national level.
Please visit The National Coalition to End Child Abuse Deaths to learn more about how you can get involved and support this movement.
If abuse is all you know, then its also all you will ever expect from life. Women who were abused later marry men who go right on abusing them.
I'm 65 now but the number of people who have even the tiniest clue of what I survived as a child and later, as a wife - I could count them on one the fingers of one hand.
You can help these defenseless children by believing them.
My sister in law sexually abused her children by encouraging them to make false accusations against people she was angry with.
The Constitutional right of those accused of child sexual abuse have been eliminated to make it easier to convict.
MANY innocent people are falsely accused and wrongly convicted - possibly even more than TRUE predators who are too smart to get caught.
If you ascribe to blindly believing the children, you deserve whatever happens. YOU are just as likely to be falsely accused as any other innocent person.
Children DO lie - not intentionally, but at the provocation of adults.
There are no Due Process rights for the accused.
You have to have foster homes to place them first.
Become a foster parent.
Abusing children in the name of saving them has somehow become the norm.
Just recently, the World's population rose above 7 Billion. A vast majority of which were born in poverty. We are already seeing the strains upon resources. When do we, as a species, realize that the Earth can only support so much?
OK, I'm rambling, but I hope some of you get my point. "Put a plug in it". ZERO POPULATION GROWTH.
I wish there were at least mandatory classes for childcare/parenting and alternative forms of discipline aside from corporal punishment. Being from the south myself, (you know...the bible belt..."spare the rod...") spankings are the norm, and spankings often turn to beatings when the parents are pushed to the brink. It is incredibly difficult to reach these parents when spanking and subsequent beatings are all that they have ever known.
But many of the claims in the stories are misleading and the claims about family reunification and a link between a low rate of removal and high child abuse death rates are flat-out false.
Fortunately, unlike most American news organizations, the BBC has a formal complaint process. Our full complaint, which outlines the distortions and falsehoods in these stories in detail is available here: http://t.co/G7dDmsqW
The problem of child abuse is serious and real, but the solutions have been phony. The BBC series promotes those phony solutions, and only increases the risk to America’s most vulnerable children.
Richard Wexler
Executive Director
National Coalition for Child Protection Reform
www.nccpr.org
There is not one simple answer to this problem - it is multi-faceted and would require a significant increase in funding for CPS, mental health, substance abuse, job (re)training and placement, etc. Unfortunately, we spend our money fighting wars in other countries instead of helping our own.
Parents should think twice before abusing their children because one day that "child" will become a teenager and will match the parentsin terms of size and will fight back to defend him/herself. A middle aged parent is no match for a teen. Also some day that "child" may be in a position to have to decide what nursing home the parent will need to go to. If I sat on a jury, where a child or tenn was on trial for assualt on their parents and it was a case where the child was trying to defend himself, I would vote to acquit.