State Care Abuse From The Netherlands to Australia to Florida
Three heartbreaking state care statistics to report.
The Netherlands
“An estimated 23 percent of Dutch children removed from troubled homes became victims of sexual abuse once they were put in state-funded institutions, more than three times the national average, according to a commission’s findings published Monday.
The commission was set up in May 2010 after a similar investigation into Catholic boarding homes began also receiving complaints of abuse in non-Catholic institutions. The Catholic investigation found that around 10 percent of children who attended them may have been sexually abused, compared with around 7 percent nationally.
The problems at state-funded institutions appear to have been equally bad, if not worse, the commission’s chairwoman, Rieke Samson, said on Monday.
‘‘We can no longer ignore sexual abuse in child care,’’ she said. She said short-term measures to fix the problems would be insufficient, and a ‘‘change of culture’’ was needed ‘‘from high to low, from minister and bureaucrats to guardians and group leaders.’’
She said that since 2010 her commission has received more than 800 complaints, some dating back decades, and has referred 42 recent cases to prosecutors.
The commission found that more than half of abuse came at the hands of other, often older children. Adult men were the abusers in around two-thirds of the remaining cases, while girls made up two-thirds of victims.
Perhaps most worrying, the commission estimated that only about 2 percent of abuse cases are ever detected by the current system.”
“The cycle of commissions and investigations looks set to continue. Child Care Netherlands, which oversees child services, received the harshest criticism in the Samson report.”
Dutch commission: sexual abuse of children common
[Boston. com 10/8/12 by Toby Sterling/Associated Press]
Australia
For Western Australia: “The boss of WA’s child protection agency has had to defend his department after 16 reports of child abuse in State care in 2011-12 – the most in almost a decade.
The previous year there were just two reported cases.
Department for Child Protection director-general Terry Murphy told a parliamentary committee yesterday the abuse represented a “significant increase” compared with previous years and was on par with the level recorded in 2003-2004.
Mr Murphy said the spike could be because of the increasing vigilance of department staff and a low threshold for what constituted abuse.
He said one child was sexually abused and the grandfather – the approved respite carer – was charged. Eleven of the children were in the care of relatives when abused, four were in general foster care and one was in a residential facility in the Northern Territory, which has been closed.
Shadow child protection minister Sue Ellery said the rise was alarming and the number had not been this high in more than seven years. The average number of cases was two or three a year.”
[Yahoo.com The West Australian 10/9/ 12 by Kate Bastians]
Florida
“The Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) website state that there are more than 8,000 children (newborns, toddlers, teens) in foster care. According to the Child Maltreatment 2010 report by the Children’s Bureau, in Florida there were more than 2,325 reported cases of foster care sexual abuse. Nationwide more than 63,500 cases of sexual abuse were reported.”
http://www.abuseandassault.com/Abuse_Foster_Care
[Abuseand assault.com]
REFORM Puzzle Pieces
^^^This is the definition of insanity.