Yeah, why should you?

 

It seems every day we hear about a child falling victim to abuse of some kind, often a result of advice ignored, another statistic of a system that has failed a young member of our society. Why are they failed by a plethora of individuals ‘paid’ to help? Professionals, who should notice when something is amiss, but who pass the responsibility onto somebody else, hoping that the next person in the chain will act upon the information of caring ordinary individuals.

 

Do said professionals fear that acting upon information given might lead to them being disciplined, if the information is incorrect? Surely careful probing would be better instead of ignoring what could be a possible child abuse case. Or are our professionals so bogged down in a mire of paperwork, rules and regulations that they end up protecting the very individuals who should be prosecuted, in case the abuser brings a case of wrongful accusation? The perpetrator uses every manipulative device to evade prosecution, something at which they are experts.

 

Whose side is the law on?

 

If ordinary people were to take the law into their own hands and remove the child from the situation, a dangerous situation, the law would prosecute the well-meaning individual with kidnapping, and the child would be returned to their situation to be battered, sexually abused, starved, or worse- murdered. The offender is once again protected.

 

The people who care go on caring no matter what, individuals frustrated by petty bureaucracy who can see children in danger and warn the authorities, who take too long waiting for the right paperwork to come through, and then it is often too late. If only someone had listened to them, and then we would not hear a chorus of voices saying, “I don’t understand, how could we have missed this?”

 

I’ll tell you why it is missed. The groundswell of well-meaning professionals who work in comfortable offices and live in comfortable homes don’t have a real grasp of the situation, they don’t know evil because they have never experienced it. Child abuse is hidden; the child doesn’t have a voice or is not listened to; no one knows what is happening. You have to think the unthinkable in order to protect these children; people don’t find this easy.

Yes, they follow up leads, knock on doors, take part in meetings, and all the while the abuser or abusers are rubbing their hands together in glee, counting the time they have been given by educated professional people following the rules. Abusers do not follow the rules of normal society. The helpless victim somehow survives and when much older they make a case to prosecute their abuser. Jimmy Saville is a case in point, who hid behind the veneer of respectability. Of course he had help; albeit unwittingly, by people who did not want to think the unthinkable.

However, to all you individuals who do care, take heart, don’t give up trying to fight a system that protects the guilty. Make a noise, upset people in authority and question rules. By doing so, you rattle the guilty and make life uncomfortable for them. A child might be saved, and in speaking out you give the helpless a voice, so that this evil that pervades our society is stopped once and for all.