Saving the Innocents... (Protecting the Children)

In her screaming rant to the Parliament from the visitor's gallery on Friday, former Minister Verna St. Rose Greaves implored the law makers to 'Do Something' without making any suggestions as to what they might possibly do. That more than anything struck me as strange coming from such a well known activist and former government minister herself charged with the responsibility for improving the lots of the nation's women and children, and  prompted at least one well known and public commentator to question the true motives of her actions. He opined that there was “strident self interest” and that “she was using the horrific and brutal murder of this innocent child to settle her political score/falling out with the PM” and I cannot help but agree.

What else could have been her intentions or her anticipated outcome from the outburst other than to build her own lagging political capital? As a long standing social activist myself I have no problem using staged opportunities to raise the profile of an issue, but coming from someone who had the opportunity at the highest level to make a difference the irony of the impotence of her rant cannot be lost in the response to the stunt.

SHE had a chance that many of us would give anything to have and made an unremarkable mess of it, so to come to the Parliament and shout at former colleagues to do what she herself failed to do is almost disingenuous.

Had she walked to the House armed with a list of suggestions designed to take the conversation forward she would have found a willing ally in me, but once again, in the place in the national discussion where sensible and well thought out ideas could be exchanged with a determined view toward protecting the lives of the innocents we have instead the barefoot, bell ringing antics that gives the cheap seats something to applaud but does nothing of substance for anyone that matters.

We need to be moving beyond stunts now, and in response to her and other people's 'requests' that something be done, I would like to propose the following:

Either as a stop gap measure until the kinks in the Children's Bill are ironed out or as a workable way forward in and of itself, I would like to propose the formation of a Child's Protection Agency governed by legislation that empowers it with a clear and unambiguous mandate to protect the nation's children, and gives it the tools and authority to so do with a view towards immediate and measurable results.

It would need to be a social service/law enforcement hybrid empowered to intervene in cases where children are suspected of being abused or may be at risk and remove the children and place them in either half way or foster care homes for the duration. This agency would have the authority to bring the suspected abusers and care givers before a court of law to determine their fitness to continue on with the custody of these charges or to lose them outright if deemed in the best interest of the children in question. Under this act it should be an offense for professionals and care givers alike to ignore signs of abuse or neglect, and teachers, doctors, nurses and other medical care workers named specifically as responsible to report any and all suspicions regardless of how small.

Child protection agents should be comprehensively trained in the management of complex social issues and be chosen from among those who have demonstrated as a primary quality an inherent love and protection instinct for children.

We would also need a massive national education campaign that alerts the public to recognizable 'signs of abuse' and provides easy and confidential 'avenues' for the reporting of any such suspicion. In the initial stages of the roll out one might even want to contemplate a reward mechanism that encourages and motivates reporting suspected abuse so as to provide some momentum and raise the profile of the possibility of a response in the national discussion.

The sad reality is that, based on the amount of children who have been killed by parents or relatives or people 'known' to their parents or relatives, perhaps it is time we start taking children out of at-risk homes to protect them from the very people who should be loving them.