KEY POINTS:
The Nia Glassie trial will provoke an increase in the reporting of child abuse cases, says Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro.
Ms Kiro predicted about 12 per cent of the cases reported would need to be brought to the attention of authorities.
She said there was a similar rise in notifications to Child Youth and Family and police following the Kahui trial that was brought to a close in May this year.
"If you see a child in great distress, there is an opportunity, if you are a family member or a friend, to actually intervene directly and pick the child up and make them feel safe.
"You can do that immediately if you are witnessing that or if you are a neighbour and feel safe enough to do that and clearly there were instances where neighbours didn't feel safe to do that, in which case you need to notify authorities," Ms Kiro said.
She said neglect was a key issue, and one that led to abuse.
"When you have neglect, when you have children that are malnourished and left out on the steps crying like Nia, who are basically left in the care of volatile young men, all are precursors of child abuse," Ms Kiro said.
She said longer-term solutions and community buy-in was important but only part of the solution.
"It's as though the media and commentators are looking for the silver bullet, the nature of the issues are complicated and require multiple solutions."
She said there were programmes being run in schools to build empathy but they needed to be wide-spread. Ms Kiro said the programmes decreased violence between children and taught them skills for the future.
"If you look at these family members and the thing you see in their faces and behaviour is a lack of empathy. Now, if you empathise and have concern for another human being, particularly a baby or a child that is vulnerable, who is dependent on you, then you can't actually torture them and be cruel and humiliate them in the way we saw in these cases," Ms Kiro said.
She said another example was parenting education and knowing that it was normal for babies to cry a lot, especially between the age of two and four months old.
She said New Zealand had a high rate of babies dying after being shaken and being shaken was one of the lead causes of death in children before they reached their first birthday.
"We have to find ways to deal with the stress of listening to our baby's cry," Ms Kiro said.
She said people need to realise that poverty also played a part.
"We can't close our eyes to the picture that Governments can make a difference," Ms Kiro said.
She said Government and non-Government agencies needed to join together, identify and work with families at risk. She said police, Child Youth and Family, Women's Refuge and Preventing Violence in the Home had joined up and were working with children at risk from an early age but people did not hear about it.
Good things were happening but the support of the public and the Government was needed, she said.
