Pathetic excuses perpetuate fraud on children
24.07.2010
By: TONY KOCH
COMMENT
IT is high time one of the greatest frauds perpetrated on the Australian people was exposed and dealt with in a proper manner.
That fraud is the plight of many children in remote communities.
If the laws that apply to the rest of this nation were applied to Aboriginal and some island communities, children would be taken from their parents and put into care by the truckload.
The most serious abuse of children that occurs is not sexual or physical violence -- although they are certainly occurring in horrendous numbers -- but sheer physical neglect.
It would be difficult to find another civilised nation in the world where such a large proportion of its children are treated as Aboriginal kids are.
The neglect includes the obvious -- failing to ensure the child has enough to eat, is protected against normal diseases, is kept clean and hygienic, has adequate sleep, is protected from sexual predators, and is encouraged to go to school.
It is not much to ask for a mother (and father) to provide the reasonable necessities of life for the children they bring into this world. But in almost every community I have seen, that is not the case for a large percentage of the children involved.
This can easily be borne out by evidence from health workers, nurses and medical staff (black and white) who work all the time in communities. Yet argument bogs down on whether it is ``culturally appropriate'' for indigenous children to be placed in the care of human beings who have lighter skin.
How pathetic. How disingenuous. Ask a starving child whether he or she cares who gives them a sandwich, or a safe house, or who clears up their clogged ears and weeping skin diseases, and see what the answer is. The argument should never be about skin colour or ``culture'', but about the welfare and health of little children. The ``culture'' can come later, if the child lives long enough.
This shameful neglect of Aboriginal children in communities by Aboriginal parents is something that must be addressed. Cries of being ``culturally inappropriate'' ring hollow when action is taken by outside authorities to ensure children are sheltered from abuse and neglect perpetrated by their parents.
