Good news for children

By Mario Schembri Wismayer

"Good news for children. Long overdue and wholeheartedly welcome. " This is how DJ Joe Tanti greeted Dr Lawrence Gonzi’s announcement regarding the creation of the new position of Commissioner for Children. Mr Tanti was deeply involved in campaigning for children’s rights and protection in the past. Dr Gonzi was speaking at the launch of ‘Children’ a corpus of statistical data, published by the National Statistics office.

The creation of this post seems to be a timely move in the right direction, judging by the chilling statistics contained in this volume. In 2000 462 children were reported to be abused – the majority were between 5 and 9 years old. They had been abused mostly by their parents.

Between 1997 and 2000 106 cases of sexual offences against children were reported. For the same period there were 3 cases of child prostitution and 63 cases of physical abuse.

The fact that children need protection – sometimes from their nearest and dearest is palpably obvious. Children are small, inexperienced and mostly defenceless. Because of their vulnerability, social services should be there ready and armed, so to speak, to step in when needed.

On being asked for his opinion, one social worker praised the creation of this post saying that it would help safeguard children and their interests.

The rights of the child today are much clearer than they were a relatively short time ago. Today no child can be forced to work, no child can be denied a decent education and every child has the right to grow in a healthy and nurturing environment.

The concept that the child belongs to society as a whole, rather than just to his or her parents is insinuating itself more and more deeply into our common psyche and is being taken more for granted by today’s society. This can be seen by the way society, through education, actively ‘programs’ our children to become the citizens that society deems it will need.

The lines where parental responsibility and authority ends and that of the state begins are becoming increasingly blurred. This is a mixed blessing, because although children need protection from abuse, older children might conceivably threaten a parent with phoning 179 – the children’s helpline. This actually happened abroad because a desired toy was not bought. Conscientious, responsible parents might feel undermined if a situation where they have to administer discipline, might lead to a situation where they may be investigated for abuse.

Abuse perpetrated by the state also has to be prevented; some years ago in the UK there was a case were social workers raided a group of homes and took the children away, allegedly because of witchcraft practices. The children were returned hours later when it transpired that the whole scare was false.