By Brook Sabin
The Government is set to label thousands of children at risk of child abuse, before they're even born.
The revelation came today as Social Development Minister Paula Bennett released a white paper outlining sweeping changes aimed at bringing the rate of abuse down.
New Zealand has one of the highest rates of child abuse in the developed world, and Ms Bennett says she has had enough.
“What should horrify us the most is the number of children who have died,” she says.
On average, it's 10 children a year that are abused or neglected to the point of death. The white paper released today includes 30 measures aimed at making serious inroads into child abuse.
They include:
- a major information sharing database, which will automatically flag at risk children;
- a phone line to dob-in suspected abusers;
- vetting those who work with children;
- giving a judge the ability to reduce guardianship rights of the worst abusers;
- and protection orders, which allow newborn babies to be taken off the most abusive parents.
But Labour MP Jacinda Ardern says that’s not enough.
“Overwhelmingly we've been let down by this white paper,” she says. “It doesn't do anything to address the huge number of children, particularly in poverty who really need us to respond and assist them today.”
The measures also include a risk predictor tool, which has already identified 20,000 to 30,000 vulnerable children. But 3 News has discovered that only children of beneficiaries are counted – and 70 percent of them are labelled ‘at risk’ at or before birth.
“Quite frankly poverty is not an excuse to abuse your children,” says Ms Bennett. “In most cases we'll be getting it right, in some cases we won't be.”
Greens co-leader Metiria Turei says the targeting of beneficiaries won’t work.
“The very tight targeting of beneficiaries means children who are at risk of maltreatment, of sexual assault, of violence and deaths, will be missed by her plan.”
The goal is to eventually use the risk predictor on all births, but beneficiaries are currently in the cross-hairs because the Government says the statistics show they're the biggest abusers.
3 News