Rob Moodie: "We need greater public awareness about the long-term consequences of child abuse and neglect."

Nowhere is this better illustrated and documented than in the Senate Report: "Forgotten Australians: A report on Australians who experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children", 2004. http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/clac_ctte/completed_inquiries/2004-07/inst_care/report/

The Senate Committee heard hundreds of disturbing stories of abuse and neglect. Unfortunately the Howard Government buried this report and excused its own inaction by declaring that child abuse and neglect experienced by countless thousands of Australians as children growing up in out-of-home care were matters for the States, churches and charities.

Two years later it contradicted its own position by invading the Northern Territory.

For more detailed information visit these two websites:
Care Leavers of Australia Network - http://www.clan.org.au/pages/index.php
and Alliance of Forgotten Australians - http://www.clan.org.au/pages/index.php

By far the biggest challenge regarding child abuse is the absense of a moral spritual foundation on which our culture and consciences are based.

Needless to say, many would disagree with this proposition, but I stand by it.

In the absense of an agreed spritual/cultural/moral tone of society, we are left with the Pharisaic conundrum of trying to invent a specific law for every kind of human behavior.

In Judaism this resulted in the absurd idea that a marriage betrothal could be based on sexual intercourse with the child aged 3 yrs and 1 day.
I invite readers to sus this out but I warn you, the material is a little obscure and very voluminous and tightly packed.

Their problem was "we have the Law, but the law does not tell us at what age a female can be married".

That was the point where common sense and the more overiding value of "do for others as you would have them do for you" or "Love your neighbour as yourself" seems to have been thrown out the window.

Personally, I cannot imagine how the human mind could ever come up with the idea of 3 yrs and 1 day..but some (not all) of the Rabbis managed to. (Babylonian Talmud era)

The Words of Jesus are to be our guide here "If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large stone tied around his neck and be cast into the sea"

That should give 'good comfort' to any Priest who abused a child.

In an age of 'what will be will be' we are lost.. straying.. wandering aimlessly in a vast forest of unfamiliar trees...

*turns on 'Back to the Bible' and settles into his recliner.....*

Child abuse is much more common among children who don't have their natural father and mother at home. For this reason it will continue to increase especially with our blinded Secularist who refuse to condemn the perverted pornography industry. The breakdown of the family is the single biggest factor in the explosion of child abuse. Look at the indigenous in Australia and New Zealand communities demonstrate this point clearly.

We also as a society are to blame because we have allowed children to be portrayed as sex objects in advertising and of course art. Parents allow children to be hypnotized by the crap on TV and live out the garbage. We have little kids dressing like sluts at 6 or 7 heading off to discos. The parents of these kids are as ignorant or just in as much denial as warped parents displaying their kids nude in the form of art.

Rob I agree with pretty much all that you have written but I do struggle with the way you have addressed a couple of points

"It is happening in all sorts of suburbs - comfortable and poor, remote and urban, non-indigenous and indigenous. It is happening in single-parent families and in families with two parents."

True but misleading. It happens in all those places but it's substantially more concentrated in some than others. Schools in poorer areas are much more likely to need behavioural facilities than in wealthier suburbs. I expect thats because parents with poor life skills (including parenting) are more likely to struggle financially than because parenting skills improve with wealth. Kids in single parent led homes are much more likely to be victims of substantiated abuse or neglect than children in homes were both natural parents are present (single parents may generally get less support and reprieve from the day to day pressures of parenting than other parents). Kids from indiginous backgrounds have vastly different risk profiles to non-indiginous kids (a variety of issues there).

Regarding the approach to corporal punishment. I think that there is ample evidence available now regarding the developmental risks to children associated with hitting to negate that as a discipline strategy used by responsible parents. Equating adult discipline is in my view the wrong approach.

Children (smacked or otherwise) often lash out physically against others in a manner which could cause an adult jail time, by the logic of adult consequences for children the appropriate response to such behaviour from a child would be a visit from the police, charges and if found guilty some jail time. As a parent I still occasionally make use of the time out/thinking spot for my son in some circumstances. If I insisted another adult remained in a particular chair or room for a period of time when they clearly wished to leave that would classify as deprivation of liberty or something like that.

I don't have the legal rights or responsibility to disciple another adult.

R0bert

Rob Moodie
Thank you so much for your excellent appraisal of this awful blight in our society. Never have I seen such an accurate, yet compassionate detailing of this issue.

I am a nurse who has listened to many stories of abuse (often sexual) of children in remote Indigenous Australia, and now I am listening to the same stories, in an acute, adult, mental health unit, in urban Australia.

Your writing, as you do, is invaluable as it tells the story accurately, without all the academic fog which turns the majority of readers off. Australia needs to hear you and ‘good on the Age’ for giving you a platform!

You are helping to promote a climate where victims feel safe to tell their stories. This is imperative. It starts the healing process. It shines a light on this dark cesspool in our culture. It sends a loud message to abusers and would-be-abusers that we as a society have zero tolerance to child abuse and that they will be discovered and dealt with.

Everybody in Australia needs to read your article and I’m starting by sending it to all on my email list. I hope other readers will do the same.

Depends on what the definition is. With the current hysteria, I think we need less of this bull!@#$ dragged out into the public so that special interests don't exploit it as they have done over and over again for their own agendas.

People like Rob Moodie here exacerbate the problem tenfold, screaming about it every few days. This obsession with it is absolutely sickening.

A follow on from my earlier post. As I pointed out child abuse and neglect happens in all sorts of places and types of homes but is more concentrated in some than others. From that we should be learning about root causes and working to alleviate those which we can.

We should also be looking for some of quick wins - where it's easily identified that kids of school age are not being appropriately fed or clothed perhaps meals at school and a laundry service via the school environment could reduce some of those issues. We would have to try and reduce the risks of kids involved being further stigmatised but I suspect most where thats an issue already stick out to their peers.

We need to ensure that good information on effective parenting strategies is readily available to parents who may not otherwise have access to that stuff. That means being creative in overcoming lack of literacy skills for some. I'm not sure how we readily overcome dogma, some around OLO just can't conceive of raising kids without the right to bash them but part of that will be ensuring that other strategies are well publicised. That if they do insist on the right to bash a kid it becomes plan "c" or "d" rather than plan "a".

R0bert

Hi to all the forgotten australians

we have cardinal pell of the catholic church , being confroted with the truth of a cover up that he had done in knowing of sexual abuse with in his church ,

and is not going to tell the pope about this ,

as they have the pope hidden away from the public far enough but the pope has no tv no telephone no radio , so he has no idea about this or if he does he too is staying silent about this ,

the state of new south wales is still continuing to cover up the rapes and abuses that victims like myself suffered whilst in their state run institutions till this day ,,

its about time that the goverment of australia ,MR RUDD, acknowledge us victims and for MR IEMMA to stand up for the state of new south wales and to addmitt to the truth of what we victims suffered by being raped and abused in these institutions that were controlled by the state of new south wales ,

pedophiles are raping and abusing children every where in our country and its about time those pedophiles are locked up for ever , you can not even let your child walk down the street ,in case some pedophile grabs them , or even let them enjoy a day out with friends , because their is a likely chance that some one will grab them ,

our society is getting worse each day , and their is nothing we can do other than listen to hear of the next victim , whether it be in a institution , or some faimly friend or member , or some one in authority , we are finding it harder each day as to who we can trustand who we can not.

AND ALSO TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE SENATE INQUIRIES OF WHICH WHERE THE TRUTH IS THE LONGER YOU KEEP HIDING THE TRUTH FROM THE PUBLIC THE WORSE OUR STATE IS GOING TO BE

FROM A REAL VICTIM

REGARDS HUFFNPUFF

If children are viewed as expendable before birth,they will be viewed
as expendable after birth. So given the Brumby Labor Government’s plans to legalise abortion (one Minister shocked two constituents by declaring support for abortion “up to a minute before birth”) Dr. Rob Moodie’s pleas for preventative strategies as outlined in his “Child abuse is a blight on us all” article are akin whistling in the wind.

When as a young nurse with other nurses I first protested against legalized abortion our pleas were drowned out by the abortion lobby’s chants ‘every child a wanted child. It assured us sex education and contraception would eliminate teenage and unwanted pregnancies,that permissive abortion laws would eradicate child abuse.This was in denial of existing research which revealed a sharp rise in child abuse in countries that had legalized abortion,research of which Dr. Moodie seems unaware. University of Southern California’s Dr Edward Lenoski’s landmark study of 674 abused children revealed 91 per cent were from planned pregnancies. Thirty five years later with the scourge of child abuse dominating our daily newspapers Premier Brumby should remember the law is a good educator and abandon ideas of legalizing child abuse in the womb. And Rob Moodie should be vocal in urging him to do so. But I wouldn't hold my breath....too politically incorrect for him I suspect!

Denny

Without wanting to sound cynical but to try and argue truth and reason with most secularist is a challenge. They hide behind women's rights so the abortion industry can prosper, insist the right to view pornography (even though it leads to child sexual abuse)and claim that bigoted Christians are really the cause of the world's woes!

They are quick to promote homosexual marriage knowing that it is destructive for society. In fact any honest study will show you most of the hated paedophile priests are homosexuals.

The only absolutes they believe in are the ones they make up themselves. One day they will bow their knee and confess Jesus Christ is Lord. Hopefully some of them will have found a little humility and repented before then.

Oh gawd, runner. You're such a bore. And a boor.

Rob Moodie writes a timely, insightful and constructive piece on how to recognize and take action against child abuse;- yet all you can do is fulminate and condemn your fellow Australians, again. Feel better? I hope so, 'cos your tirades couldn't possibly achieve any other constructive end.

Here's a tip: if you want to convert a single person, ever, in your whole life, like a good Christian should be able to do - you'll have to stop shouting about how wicked and evil and perverted and monstrous we all are and actually get a civil tongue in your head. God gave you that tongue, yet all you ever do with it is utter pious garbage.

There is no uglier sight than a hard-line holy-roller in a pious rage, as you demonstrate day after dreary day.

Besides which, in my experience it is usually the most pious who have the most to hide. Got something in the closet you haven't 'fessed up to the Lord about?

The only Christians I know who actually do any good and who positively influence the people around them are unassuming, quiet achievers who do good in the world without taking out tickets on themselves or loudly condemning everybody else. They are truly doing the Lord's work.

In other words runner, the precise opposite of what you do. Maybe you could learn something from them. 'Cos based on your behaviour day after day, there's nothing you have to offer us here but spite, bile and pious denunciation, which you use to flatter your own selfish sense of moral vanity. Ugly, ugly, ugly.

I am an investigative writer researching a project dealing with the failure of US family law courts in the areas of adoption and child custody, and am writing in response to Child abuse is a blight on us all by Rob Moodie published on 9 July 2008. Because of space limitations imposed, I will be breaking this response into several posts over several days.

While Mr Moodie highlights some of the more glamorous aspects of child abuse, unfortunately, he does not discuss the more significant contributing factors which are either direct causes or catalysts resulting in child abuse.

Mr Moodie writes that “Child abuse and neglect is not just a family problem and something to be solved by social workers, police and the courts. It is a whole-of-nation problem. Although we do not have a national study to show its prevalence, we know reported cases are on the rise and that our ‘treatment systems’ are straining to cope.”

One of the significant contributing factors in child abuse is the removal not of parental “rights,” but of parental “responsibilities” by government, be it social workers, police and the courts.

In many western nations, we have become much too lazy to want to accept and emphasize parental “responsibilities.” Since the time of US President Lyndon Baines Johnson and his “Great Society” in the 1960s, the US has led a whirlwind movement which has been repeated around the globe to relieve parents of parental “responsibility” by substituting government welfare programs which serve not to support the family in crisis, but to destroy it. Most recently, here in the US, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton continued to espouse this philosophy of her mentality that it “takes a village to raise a child.”

First. It does not take a politician to popularize the abdication of parental “responsibility” by claiming that it is the duty of the “village,” or of LBJ’s “Great Society,” to raise a child. A politician who spews forth such degrading pablum is seeking merely to continue to pander to the electorate and to propagate the eventual destruction of the family unit.

Second. Political leaders need to initiate and conduct serious investigations into the internal operations of government itself, starting with a cold and objective analysis of what is being taught social workers in their training programs in accredited educational institutions. In all-too-many educational programs, where there are social work collegiate majors and even graduate degrees, the intellectual rigor of what these social work majors are being taught is pathetic at best, and laughable at worst. Having enrolled in one such course, I immediately dropped it when I heard the professor tell a filled lecture hall that what was important was not what you “know,” but what you “feel” about a family.

Yet, these same social workers are given credibility in courtrooms to testify and to submit “analytical reports” to courts based not on facts, but merely on what they “feel.”

If a parent is having a bad day when a social worker visits, and the social worker, most of whom are rather young and worldly-inexperienced and immature, “feels” that the parent has not recognized and groveled in honor to the superiority of the social worker, then the social worker can quite easily destroy any family unit with near impunity.

Third. Judicial systems need to deal with the real world of child abuse with the application and integration of technology into their judicial proceedings. In the US, the creation of “family law courts” became a faddish trend, intended to provide a more informal setting than regular courtrooms. One of the “innovative” ideas was to not have a court reporter to create a transcript of the proceedings so as to lower the expenses to the family … or perhaps to more expeditiously shift the parental “responsibility” from the parents to the state government. Currently, the Republic of Ireland is examining the implementation of three regional family law courts. As a result, it created a judicial dictatorial regime where laws were abused at best, and simply ignored and even violated at worst, because of no accountability and responsibility because of no transcript of record.

Child abuse IS a blight.

It also has to be remembered that most infanticide is committed by... MOTHERS.

What gets me with the title of this article is the idea that people are responsible for other peoples children.

We are not.

I brought my daughters up in one of dual homes because I separated from their mother.

I did not seek other people to take responsibility for my children and I seek to take no responsibility for other folks kids.

To the usual UN sponsored drivel

"the true measure of a nation's standing is how well it attends to its children - their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialisation, and their sense of being loved, valued and included in the families and societies into which they are born".

I can only speak for my dysfunctional family as it contributes to the “Nations Standing” (oh don’t you love phrases like that, pure politico-crappola)

Both my daughters are in their 20s.
Neither has ever been neglected
Neither has ever been abused – although both have been smacked when naughty, by me and their mother.
Both have a loving and continuous relationship with me and their mother.
Both have developed into responsible, focused, happy and productive individuals who contribute to the “Nations Standing” by having jobs, paying their taxes and obeying the laws. They do much more than that but in “Nations Standing” terms, that is all that is needed.

So I get tired of people telling me I am blighted because someone else has abused their kids.

We are all individual, we are solely responsible for our children. We are not responsible nor blighted by the shortcomings of others.

Supposedly government is there to help support the family unit.

Maybe they should express that support by reducing the burden they place on families through excessive taxes, rates and government charges including this carbon tax disaster all of which reduce the ability of responsible parents to look after their children

Col Rouge

We can't all be as perfect as you. You looked after your children - the rest of the world's children can just bugger off, eh?

So you'd pick up your own daughters if they got into strife, but turn away from a neighbor in need?

Happily, not all the world is as self-centred and smug as you, old feller.

I don't entirely agree with the writer that we need more health professionals interceding.

A mate of mine was evicted for not mowing the grass. His home was neat and clean but he couldn't get out to mow due to a depressive illness. No neighbour came by to ask how he was. No Council worker dropped in to see what the matter was, the owner drove passed and kept on driving to the agent who evicted him. It reminded me of the recent case in Adelaide where the house was a wreck and no-one went round to help.

A caring and compasionate community requires everyone developing a compassionate response to need. An untidy home is a signal something is wrong, that someone needs a hand to get the place and their lives in order. If neighbours, through Council if nesessary, had neighbourhood support for these cases the stress of loneliness, alienation, and illness could be addressed in a better way than it currently is, and all, including children would benefit. We can't leave it all to DOCS.

Blaming pedophiles and parents is a sign of a lack of compassion and understanding of the causes of child neglect and abuse. We all need to support each other through life. To do this we need better neighbourhood reporting systems and compassionate responses. Blaming never solves problems. If my mate had a neighbour drop in to mow the grass and have a chat he would have kept his home and recovered earlier.

Pedophiles by the way are usually abused children

Spikey “So you'd pick up your own daughters if they got into strife, but turn away from a neighbor in need?

Happily, not all the world is as self-centred and smug as you, old feller”

Absolutely on the first

and to the neighbour, I would yet after my daughters.

Of course, I know my neighbours. As I know my friends

but to the likes of you? All I know is you are judgmental and quick to criticize those you have no direct knowledge of.

Both features being deficient in the qualities which would ever endear me to ever think of doing anything for you or ever asking for anything from you or considering your view worthy of even momentary recall.

Barfenzie “A caring and compassionate community”

Don’t seek compassion from government or government employees at any level. They are paid to do a job. Your existence and possible expectations merely burdens them with responsibilities they would sooner not have.

In my times of need I have found my friends the source of support and the medical profession a source of professional service but I don’t think even doctors consider their patients their friends or their ‘work’ necessarily their ‘purpose’.


To parents, even poor ones, they are the best ones to bring up their own children, Lenins experiments proved it.

“Pedophiles by the way are usually abused children”
yes but we are all individually responsible for our own actions and the pedophile ignores his or her own childhood pain when inflicting similar on their victims.

I would call it lust and self entitlement displacing any sense of empathy, respect or compassion .

Get a look at Col's lack of self-awareness - or is it hypocrsy?

Listen to this: "All I know is you are judgmental and quick to criticize those you have no direct knowledge of." Judgmental, eh? Quick to criticise?

And then this, nanoseconds later: "Both features being deficient in the qualities which would ever endear me to ever think of doing anything for you or ever asking for anything from you or considering your view worthy of even momentary recall."

And this quickly after: "Don’t seek compassion from government or government employees at any level. They are paid to do a job. Your existence and possible expectations merely burdens them with responsibilities they would sooner not have."

So on the strength of that Col, old feller, we'll all stop being judgmental and be slow to criticise.

Oh, the towering intellect!

COL ROUGE COMMENT FOR YOU

IM A VICTIM THAT WAS RAPED IN THE STATES RUN INSTITUTION DARUK BOYS HOME ,1977/1978

AND BELEAVE ME YOU MORON THAT HAS STOOD AND WATCHED PEOPLE GET NAKED IN THE INSTITUTIONS ,

JUST BECAUSE A CHILD HAS BEEN RAPED BY PEDOPHILES WHO WORKED IN THESE INSTITUTIONS , DOES NOT AND I MEAN DOES NOT MEAN THAT THOSE VICTIMS WILL BECOME PEDOPHILES

I KNOW IM CERTIANLY NOT .

SO I GUESS YOU BEST RE WRITE WHAT YOU STATE ,

AS YOU ARE AWARE COL ROUGE THAT THESE RAPES ARE TRUE THAT HAPPEN IN OUR STATES INSTITUTIONS ,

YOU YOUR SELF WOULD OF SEEN A LOT OF ABUSE AT BAXTER WHERE YOU WERE FRIENDS WITH THE GOVERNER OF THAT PLACE OR HAD A VERY CLOSE FRIEND WORKING THEIR AS YOU HAVE WORKED IN THE STATES PRISON SYSYTEM AND MAYBE THE JUVENILLE SYSTEM AS WELL

PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE THE TYPE THAT DON'T CARE FOR VICTIMS YOU MIGHT AS WELL BE IN THE PRIEST HOOD AS WELL

FROM A REAL VICTIM