Philippa Stevenson: Every five weeks a child is murdered in Godzone

COMMENT

Statistically speaking, between the time we basked in the New Year's Day sun and today one child has been murdered in our country.

Also in that five weeks, an unknown number have died through neglect and unreported abuse.

Who were they?

We know some of the past roll of death and dishonour because, for one reason or another, the names and sad lives were reported widely - Delcelia Witika, James Whakaruru, Saliel Aplin, Olympia Jetson.

We know, too, that the place we call Godzone can be hell for some kids, that there is no such thing as "just a domestic" and that violence and sexual abuse can happen in the "best families".

We've come a long way. Twenty-five years ago the widely believed tagline for Godzone was "the best little place for raising kids".

Now we've read the damning reports of "systemic failure" which pushed children through the gaps to their deaths, seen the movie (Once Were Warriors) and maybe even dug in our pockets for a donation to some helping agency or other.

But what if returning to work this year meant lining up for your 35th year of caring for battered babies?

That was the term generally in use when Hamilton social worker Maxine Hodgson and a small group of volunteers founded Parentline 26 years ago in response to concerns over family violence and child abuse.

They sent out a survey that first year - 1978 - to those regularly dealing with children to establish the depth of this social plague. In some cases it established only a depth of ignorance. Some schools and Scout groups thought they had been sent the document by mistake.

By then the fledgling organisation was averaging 15 calls for help a month. That year its six volunteer staff worked with 41 children.

Today, established in other towns as well as Hamilton, Parentline's 25 paid staff get an average of 150 calls a day and last year managed cases involving 1360 children and their families.

But we no longer hear the graphic term "battered babies". In fact, Hodgson can chart the progress of descriptions for the savage acts that leave children beaten, broken and traumatised from the plain to the obscure or obfuscating.

According to the fashion, Parentline has worked with child abuse, children at risk, child protection and family violence.

It is a pattern of verbal sanitising - cleaning up the words to make the unpleasant palatable, the unthinkable conceivable.

"If you asked Joe Bloggs what he thought family violence was, he'd probably say mum and dad fighting," says Parentline child sexual abuse case manager Moyna Fletcher.

That perception is some distance from the reality of abused and beaten children.

It is also a dangerous "delaying tactic", according to Hodgson. The general of Parentline's "political warriors" says that every time the words change "another paper has to be written in Wellington, more policy has to be developed".

After 34 years as a social worker and a couple of hundred trips to Wellington to make presentations to ministers and officials, Hodgson is adamant that more words on paper will contribute nothing.

Between gruesome headlines the issue of child abuse falls out of sight. Even when it leads the news, we seem to suffer paralysis by blame and accusation.

What will it take, asks Hodgson, for the Government to rank child abuse ahead of environment, business and Oscar chances for fantasy movies?

"I want Helen Clark's agenda next election to lead with promises to make changes for children."

Fellow Parentline social worker and Maori warden Nola Edmonds knows the change that would have the most far-reaching effect.

Beside the verbal sanitising there has been another disturbing trend - people in positions of power who think they know about child abuse.

Too many people with little knowledge or training, particularly in the court system, are making far-reaching decisions about and for abuse victims, say Edmonds and her Parentline colleagues.

Their wish is for a Warrant of Fitness in Child Protection - for every teacher, police officer, lawyer or person working with children to have training in child protection and family violence.

"And not a two-day course either, something comprehensive," Edmonds adds.

"In the end there is a child," wrote the Commissioner for Children in the report on the killing of 4-year-old James Whakaruru in 1999. "The story of this one small damaged child should stir each worker and each agency to examine their practice and the purpose of their activities."

So should we all be stirred to action by the untold but not unknown stories of all those who, every five weeks, silently join James on our roll of shame.

* Email Philippa Stevenson