Lord Laming produced a report in 2003 following a public inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie`. She died in February 2000 of malnutrition and hypothermia, having suffered horrific abuse at the hands of her great-aunt and the aunt’s boyfriend. Lord Laming’s public inquiry found a series of missed chances for the authorities to save her life. A lack of communication between social workers, nurses, doctors and police officers allowed her great-aunt and her boyfriend to torture the little girl to death. Many professionals involved in the case admitted that their workloads were too big while pay and morale were low, and that they did not communicate with one another. The inquiry made a number of key recommendations for improvements to services that led to the Children’s act 2004.
Far too many children suffer abuse or neglect at the hands of their parents or careers. Research shows the scale of this, and reports of children dying as a result of abuse or accidents are all too often in the news.
In 2000 the NSPCC published the results of a national survey of 3,000 young people aged 18-24 about their experience of a wide range of issues ( Cawson,2000) and found that-
• 7% had been physically abused by a career
• 6% had suffered emotional and psychological maltreatment as children
• 6% had been seriously physically neglected
• 4% had been sexually abused
• 80% of physically abused children had known domestic violence
• A significant number of children face repeated serious and multiple forms of abuse at the hands of parents or careers
• Abuse is more common in families with drug or alcohol abuse problems.
The number of children suffering abuse is on the increase, some say the increase is due to better awareness of abuse but whatever the reason it is clear that it is crucial we continue to raise our efforts to safeguard children.
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