Death and abuse of American children at the hands of parents or other caregivers is as regular an occurrence as the sunrise. Children are maimed by family members, left to roast in locked cars, drowned or scalded with hot water – and many are dying from their injuries.
Sexual abuse and other atrocities committed against children, unfortunately, are not rare.
During it all, we stand by the sidelines, incredulous, wondering, “How can this be?” In 2002, officially 1.98 per 100,000 children in our country died from abuse or neglect, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But that number is likely low, due to misinformation and unreported abuse.
In today’s America, groups as disparate as rodeo cowboys, infertile women and the unborn have advocacy groups. But while poor children also have political and legal champions, their day-t0-day care is often relegated to understaffed and ineffectual government agencies.
I have always thought that pro-life, pro-family groups would find child protection a natural extension of their mission and insist that politicians allocate more funds to child welfare. But it hasn’t happened to the degree that it should.
Just because a couple can have a child doesn’t make them good parents. Repeatedly, this is proved when children are taken from foster homes and returned to unfit, abusive biological parents. In 2003, an estimated 906,000 children nationwide were determined to be victims of child abuse or neglect, the majority of them under 3 years old, a study by Health and Human Services shows. In Colorado, 7,570 children were abused or neglected in 2002, according to the Child Welfare League of America.
Most perpetrators are in their 20s and living below the poverty line. Many are high school dropouts and were themselves abused as children. Males are more likely to kill than females.
Recently, four brothers who had been starved by their adoptive foster mother confronted her in a Camden, N.J., courtroom. One of them, Bruce Jackson – who at age 19 weighed 45 pounds and is now, two years later, more than 90 pounds heavier – told Vanessa Jackson: “You took my childhood.” In all the years the boys had been starved, abused and uncared for, social services visited their home regularly.
As a society, we pay lip service to how much we care for our children. We blame others – mainly government agencies such as child protective services – to deflect society’s and parents’ neglect. Most social workers are caring, loving, overworked professionals who have too large a load, and like teachers are paid a pittance. They need better working conditions and better pay.
The poor in our midst are disenfranchised. Their children are much worse; they are invisible, disposable. Poverty, drug and alcohol abuse and mental illness seem to be intimately related to child abuse. This can be prevented by early use of child fatality- review teams that include prosecutors, coroners, law enforcement, social workers and public health-care providers.
The inexorable upward trend of abuse must be reversed. Not to do so belies what America is all about: a caring, free nation.
What happened to 6-year-old Aarone Thompson, the child who was reported missing from her Aurora home in November 2005? Was she a victim of abuse? What pain might she have suffered? Could whatever happened to her have been prevented? Would earlier intervention by clergy, neighbors, police or social workers have changed the child’s and her siblings’ fates?
Only vigilance and early intervention can save some of these kids.
Pius Kamau of Aurora is a thoracic and general surgeon. He was born and raised in Kenya and immigrated to the U.S. in 1971.
