Thursday 23 December 2010

How Long Must This Go On?

 A Nation Eating Its Young

It's difficult to know where to begin in endeavouring to comment upon the terrible case of child abuse now daily being reported upon in the media.  There are so many things that scream for attention.

A nine year old girl has been living under a regime of sexual abuse and latterly torture by her father and mother, whilst her family was being supported, counselled, and nurtured by about five state agencies.  (The commentary below assumes the accuracy and truthfulness of the reports in the media, thus far.  This assumption may be regarded by some readers as generous.) 

Here are some initial  thoughts:

1.  New Zealand desperately needs to reject the institutional racism that results in official policy pandering to Maori "whanauism".  Modern Maori, in trying to rediscover and reassert their traditional cultural values, have championed the merit and value of the whanau--the extended family.  Actually they have idolised it.  When a family is abusing children, the agencies of state, in genuflection to Maori insistence on the primacy of whanau, look to remove the child from the home and place him or her with relatives.  "Keep it in the family, bro'"  Whanau is not just a substitute family--it is regarded in Maori ideology as more important than a nuclear family of husband, father, and children.

It turns out that this poor abused child was removed from her parents and placed with "caregivers" who were actually relatives, whanau.  Whilst being basking in whanau warmth and being nurtured in the mana of whakapapa, she was raped, according to a report in the NZ Herald.  This occurred while she was under CYFS "care" who had placed her with extended family and were "supervising".

Now, it would be reasonable to assume that the responsible state agencies would perform extensive checks and suitability assessments before placing an abused child with care-givers.  Yes, but in this case it was not necessary, because the care-givers were whanau.  Whanau trumps scrutiny, examination and proving up, every time.  The ideology of whanauism says so.  The government is complicit in accepting this nonsense.  This is what we mean by institutional racism running rampant through the government.


(Some may wonder why we are presenting these degenerate parents as Maori while they have name suppression.  Good point.  But if reports are true, they are indeed a Maori family. 
The mother of a tortured girl allegedly told authorities she was at a tangi "down south" in order to avoid anyone seeing the extensive injuries across her daughter's body.
Pakeha and other races/cultures do not have tangis.)

2.  New Zealand has an antipathy to adoption.  It seems to us that when a child has been genuinely abused, criminally so, there ought never to be a possibility of returning the child to his or her progenitors.  Judgement should be sought from the courts to put the child up for adoption.

But in this country we persist in the naive and childish notion that  somehow blood and genes trump ethics and righteous behaviour.  Under the dominant humanist ideology, a child is believed to suffer great harm and deprivation if it is separated from its bloodlines and the culture represented therein.  When a family culture, however, is so degenerate that it turns upon its own defenceless children, it has to come under permanent interdiction.  Children must be removed and given a permanent replacement home with adoptive parents who are characterised by righteous and holy living--and we use those ethical adjectives deliberately, for this is where the issues lie. 

Here also we end up being confronted by institutional racism.  Given a choice between putting a Maori child up for adoption to white parents and working to restore that child to abusive Maori parents, state agencies persistently favour the latter.  It is regarded as a far better, superior outcome.  Try telling that to the poor child in West Auckland who was eventually restored to her birth parents, after being raped whilst in the care of whanau and CYFS, only to have her toenails ripped off and boiling water poured on them--by her mother!

Now, lest some may think that this sword has only one edge, let us be clear.  Degenerate white parents criminally abuse their children also.  Would we argue strenuously for white children to be taken from such parents permanently and adopted out to (Maori) parents, or Polynesian parents, or Chinese parents provided they proved up to be decent, loving, righteous people.  Of course.

3.  Bureaucratic incompetence is endemic.  The proof of this is before us in large relief  This was an extreme case of abuse.  Dita De Boni reports:
Although CYF had apparently worked "intensively" with the family, no one understood the level of abuse this girl suffered until her grandmother called the police, many months after her torture had begun.  Not only was the girl known to authorities, but her parents were too.
Her mother had received medical care for two broken hands she sustained after beating her daughter. She probably even qualified for ACC payouts from these injuries. (Emphasis, ours)
Yet, state agencies were oblivious.  And just how many state agencies were involved?

The family had been involved with CYF, a family support agency, a registered ACC counsellor, a court-appointed psychologist, the child's court-appointed lawyer and a child and youth mental health service.  "Sadly, the primary focus of most of this professional engagement was not based on concerns she was at risk in her home," Ms MacKenzie said.  "Rather it was to help the young girl and her family work through the sexual abuse she had suffered while previously living with close family caregivers."

"Along with other professionals, we believed the family was genuinely engaged in achieving that goal.  "It appears we have been terribly misled and this has had tragic consequences."
You don't say.  You could only get such myopia, such blindness, such refusal to see, such a willing suspension of disbelief when one is blinded by false ideology and is, therefore, profoundly incompetent.  "Just tick the boxes.  Nothing to see here.  Moving right along." 

For two years this abuse went on!  In the end, when the poor child was removed, she was admitted to hospital suffering starvation and dehydration!  The state agencies were misled. This indicates that they just took words at face value.  They failed to inspect what they expected. 

But it gets worse.  The child's teacher was sufficiently observant to see that the child was likely suffering abuse of some kind.  She contacted authorities.  The reported response is unbelievable.
CYF will also investigate claims by the girl's teacher that reports of abuse by the school were not investigated.  In an email to Prime Minister John Key, the teacher said she reported her concerns about "constant abuse" the girl was suffering to school management on a "weekly, almost daily" basis. But the message the school got back from the child's social worker was that she was "clumsy and accident prone".

In her email, the teacher said she felt powerless to do anything to protect the girl and keep her safe. "This child has come to school with black eyes, a swollen face, swollen nose, bruises, abrasions and infected wounds that have all been explained as her being 'clumsy and accident prone'.  "However she is only accident prone at home, she has not had a so-called accident while at school ...

"Why do we have to wait for a child to be seriously injured or killed before action is taken?"
No doubt we will get the usual litany of how overstretched the agencies are--overworked, understaffed--etc. etc.  But this will not wash for a moment.  State agencies were all over this family.  CYFS worked intensively with them--to use their own word.  The family were cocooned by state agencies and bureaucrats.  This case represents a systemic failure.  It has to.  We believe it will turn out (but never be acknowledged) that the failure lies primarily in the working ideology, the world-view, the culture of belief that currently dominates the social services. Above all else, this ideology is dominated by the principle that state agencies can make people change, they can make a difference, they can redeem people and make them righteous.  That entrenched belief produces a culture of credulity, mixed with naive hope.  Evil is not seen as intrinsic to the human heart, but the product of circumstances.  Change those and people will change for the better.  This is the blindness that prevents state agencies from seeing the brutal truth of bruises, black eyes, abrasions, and infected wounds.

The sad moral of the story is this: once you are under CYFS care you can get away with murder.  They will never see it.  It would be interpreted as only an accident.  It has to be, for thus spake Zarathustra.

How long will be put up with this.  How long will we, as a nation, continue with these false ideologies? 

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