As a consequence rising numbers of children in Australia are being left in situations which expose them to cumulative harm and potentially extreme neglect and severe abuse. Many children are now temporarily removed on multiple occasions from dysfunctional families, only to be repeatedly sent back to parents fundamentally incapable of providing the proper care and support that all children need to thrive and have a right to receive.
The reality is that some families are completely broken and can never be fixed no matter the support given to parents. In these cases, early and permanent removal is in the best interests of children, preferably by means of adoption by suitable families. However, neither of these messages is cutting through with policy makers who continue to listen to the largest and loudest stakeholders in the child protection debate.
Vulnerable children therefore desperately need a truly independent advocate to help turn this situation around. This is where the Human Rights Commission should be stepping in and demanding child protection authorities become more transparent.
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The AHRC should have used National Child Protection Week to highlight the fact that the most basic and most revealing child protection data is not available. We don’t know the number reports that actually are re-reports on a state-by-state basis. Nor do we know the number of home visits conducted (or rather not conducted) by child protection authorities every year.
If we are to really end the silence, this crucial data must be published annually. Only then will we truly know the extent to which child abuse and neglect is being ignored.
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