Suchergebnisse

When Australia signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, federal and state governments agreed, under Article 19, to create appropriate legislation and all necessary social and educational measures to protect children from all forms of abuse and exploitation and provide treatment and social support for victims and their carers. Seventeen years later, Australian child advocates are wondering where those services are, especially for those outside state capital cities. More importantly, where is the justice system that protects children and caters for victims of sexual abuse?Australia, in common with other former British colonies, inherited the Westminster adversarial system, described by Mallon and White (1995, p. 50, cited in McGrath 2005) as:

When young children tell their mothers that they are being sexually abused by their father, the mother faces a dilemma; if she does nothing, state child protection services can remove her children as being in need of care and protection. If police are called, she is likely to be told to leave the family home to keep her children safe. If she does, the father is likely to turn to the federal family law system1 to seek time with the children. If the mother seeks an order for supervised, or no further contact with the child to protect them from abuse, she may lose residence of the child and the child may be ordered to live with the abusing parent.

An earlier evaluation of the New Zealand child protection program 'Keeping Ourselves Safe' found, inter alia, that girls with learning problems were highly vulnerable to drugs, sexual abuse and violence (Briggs & Hawkins 1996a). This led to the present study, the aim of which was to focus specifically on children with learning disabilities, and to include data from boys as well as girls.Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from one hundred and sixteen students aged 11–17 years (61 females and 55 males) who were interviewed in special education units. Their common characteristics were that they had all been assessed as being 3 years or more behind their chronological age group in their development and achievement, they needed individually planned curricula across the range of school subjects, and they had all previously attended mainstream schools throughout the North and South Islands of New Zealand.The study confirmed the vulnerability of children with learning disabilities to the risks of drugs, violence, psychological bullying, pornography and sexual abuse. Significant levels of violence in both schools and the home were found. The study also showed the need for special attention for the protection of boys.It is possible that children with learning disabilities were targeted because they were seen as safer targets in terms of an expectation that they would be less aware of the difference between right and wrong and less likely than other children to make a report about any abusive behaviour. If this speculative hypothesis is correct, it means that children with learning disabilities require even more vigilant forms of protection than other children.

The authors have, jointly and separately, evaluated twenty-five governmentfunded child and family community-based agencies and programs in Australia and New Zealand in recent years. They argue for more rigorous evaluation of these organisations as a tool for the development of the sector and as a requirement for the receipt of substantial funding from government sources. On the basis of their experience, they point to some of the inherent difficulties in evaluating community-based agencies that have no history of external evaluation. Unlike government departments, these agencies often experience the tension of short term, unstable funding which (realistically or otherwise) staff and management link to the outcome of the evaluation.

Prevention approaches are an important response to the problem of child abuse. Although there have been repeated calls for closer parent-teacher cooperation in prevention programs, such alliances have been far from satisfactory to date. Reasons for poor parent-teacher partnerships are based on social reluctance to intervene in the family unit and the mutual reluctance of teachers and parents to engage in a meaningful alliance. Part of the reticence of teachers to involve parents lies in their lack of confidence relating to the delivery of the child protection curriculum. These problems are explored and some suggestions for change are offered.