Experts divided on leap in abuse cases

Cases of confirmed child abuse have leapt suddenly by 45 per cent, but the experts are arguing over what the increase means.

The Department of Child, Youth and Family Services (CYFS) says the number of established cases of child abuse fluctuated between 8200 and 8900 a year in the four years up to last year, but jumped to 13,017 cases in the 12 months to May 31 this year.

Act MP Muriel Newman, who extracted the figures through a parliamentary question, said the jump was an indictment of the Government, which had failed to stop the growth of child abuse despite "flinging another $150 million of taxpayers' money into the bureaucracy".

But CYFS northern regional director Marion Heeney said the increase might simply reflect increased public willingness to notify suspected child abuse cases.

"People are taking a lot more notice of signs that children may be abused, so the increase in notifications is not necessarily an indication of increased abuse in society," she said.

The new figures come on the eve of a two-day "summit" on child abuse and smacking being organised by the Parentline Trust in Hamilton today and tomorrow.

Parentline chief executive Maxine Hodgson said all the signs were that actual child abuse was still increasing.

"We don't see that there is a dent or plateauing of child abuse and neglect," she said.

The department has introduced a national tollfree hotline which treats all serious calls about possible abuse as formal notifications, replacing the previous system where social workers in local offices exercised some discretion on the basis of knowing local families.

Doctors, teachers, police officers and social workers have all been encouraged to report suspected cases more readily.

"The police are notifying a lot more family violence cases," said Ms Heeney. "They are now notifying CYFS if a child witnesses family violence. They used to notify only if the child was harmed."

The department has boosted front-line social workers from 956 two years ago to 1162, and has slashed the number of cases not yet assigned to a social worker from a peak of 3021 last October to 1191 last month.

But Dr Newman said the Government had failed to address the causes of rising child abuse - increasing family breakdown.

"We have a Government which is not trying to protect or promote the nuclear family as a safe place to raise kids," she said. "They have failed to do anything at all about the increasing fatherlessness in society."

Mrs Hodgson had another explanation - New Zealand's tolerance of parents using physical punishment on their children.

"We know the recent situation where a family man hit a child with a piece of 4 by 2 and was let off," she said.

"We can't have that any more. There are children who talk about being hit - the humiliation, the anger, how they are waiting to grow up to punch people back. We want to reverse that."

MPs will be asked at the summit today to state their positions on Green MP Sue Bradford's bill to repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act, which allows parents to use "reasonable force" to correct a child.

* Child abuse hotline:

0508 FAMILY (0508 326 459).