Fighting to do better for Kiwi children

Last year 14 children died at the hands of people charged with caring for them. In 2009, one of New Zealand’s worst years, the toll was 17.

Today, Stuff launches the Child Victim Toll to bring into stark relief the unnecessary deaths every year of children from abuse, neglect, maltreatment.

On average, nine children are added to the toll each year. The grim tally since 1992 is 210. The average age of these innocent victims was three-and-a-half.

Fairfax’s Child Victim Toll aims to be the measure of New Zealand’s progress at addressing child abuse.

It is not perfect with the state of statistics concerning child deaths fragmented in the way they are recorded and reported across different agencies.

Detective Inspector Craig Scott, a police officer with three decades of experience dealing with child protection cases, said agencies could play a part in protecting children ‘‘but they’re not there 24/7’’.

‘‘Having a child is a responsibility. Parents need to have their children’s welfare as the major priority in their life.

‘‘Agency follow-up is a big part of it but whanau and friends are probably a bigger part of it to me, if you’ve got someone who’s struggling.’’

Deprived parts of the country are overwhelmingly represented in the statistics.

This divide is starkly illustrated in the suburbs of Auck- land.

There was a clear east-west divide south of the city centre between the haves and the havenots and the suburbs with high levels of social deprivation were dotted with cases of child homicide.

Roughly every second day, a child aged 0-14 is admitted to hospital for injuries arising from assault, neglect, or maltreatment.

The most common are head injuries, broken bones, and injuries to the abdomen, lower back, and pelvis.

According to the Child Poverty Monitor report there has been a small but significant fall in admis- sions: from 168 in 2000 to 145 in 2014.

According to police data, there were 11,616 child protection cases opened during 2014/15. That’s 32 per day.

The Ministry of Social Development’s expert panel final report, which sets out recommendations for a future operating model for Child, Youth and Family, shows each year about 60,000 children are notified to CYF.

At any point in time about 4,900 Kiwi kids are in statutory care. Prevalence of maltreatment is likely to be underestimated given both under-reporting and the quality of CYF’s data.

Not all suspicious deaths result in a killer being convicted.

Manslaughter charges have a much higher rate of conviction than murder charges. In cases where a murder charge was laid, 66 per cent resulted in a murder conviction.

In cases where manslaughter was the highest charge laid, 84 per cent resulted in a conviction.

Of the 27 murder cases which did not result in a murder conviction, 12 of the defendants made a successful insanity plea, seven were found not guilty, four died during the justice process, and three had their charges downgraded to manslaughter.