Every five hours a child dies from abuse or neglect in the US. (photo: file)
FOCUS: America's Child Death Shame
18 October 11
The BBC's full investigative series - America's Child Death Shame - is available online here. -- JPS/RSN
Why is the problem of violence against children so much more acute in the US than anywhere else in the industrialized world, asks Michael Petit, President of Every Child Matters.
ver the past 10 years, more than 20,000 American children are believed to have been killed in their own homes by family members. That is nearly four times the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.The child maltreatment death rate in the US is triple Canada's and 11 times that of Italy. Millions of children are reported as abused and neglected every year. Why is that?
Downward Spiral
Part of the answer is that teen pregnancy, high-school dropout, violent crime, imprisonment, and poverty - factors associated with abuse and neglect - are generally much higher in the US.
Further, other rich nations have social policies that provide child care, universal health insurance, pre-school, parental leave and visiting nurses to virtually all in need.
In the US, when children are born into young families not prepared to receive them, local social safety nets may be frayed, or non-existent. As a result, they are unable to compensate for the household stress the child must endure.
In the most severe situations, there is a predictable downward spiral and a child dies. Some 75% of these children are under four, while nearly half are under one.
Geography matters a lot in determining child well-being. Take the examples of Texas and Vermont.
Texas prides itself in being a low tax, low service state. Its per capita income places it in the middle of the states, while its total tax burden - its willingness to tax itself - is near the bottom.
Vermont, in contrast, is at the other extreme. It is a high-tax, high-service state.
Mix of Risks
In looking at key indicators of well-being, children from Texas are twice as likely to drop out of high school as children from Vermont. They are four times more likely to be uninsured, four times more likely to be incarcerated, and nearly twice as likely to die from abuse and neglect.
In Texas, a combination of elements add to the mix of risks that a child faces. These include a higher poverty rate in Texas, higher proportions of minority children, lower levels of educational attainment, and a political culture which holds a narrower view of the role of government in addressing social issues.
Texas, like many other traditionally conservative states, is likely to have a weaker response to families that need help in the first place, and be less efficient in protecting children after abuse occurs.
The sharp differences between the states raises the question of an expanded federal role.
Are children Texas children first? Or are they first American children with equal opportunity and protection?
Blame Parents?
A national strategy, led by our national government, needs to be developed and implemented. For a start, the Congress should adopt legislation that would create a National Commission to End Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities.
And no children's programmes should be on the chopping block, federal or state. Children did not crash the US economy. It is both shortsighted economic policy and morally wrong to make them pay the price for fixing it.
But instead as the US economy lags, child poverty soars, and states cut billions in children's services, we are further straining America's already weak safety net.
Inevitably, it means more children will die. The easy answer is to blame parents and already burdened child protection workers. But easy answers don't solve complex problems.
And with millions of children injured and thousands killed, this problem is large indeed, and it deserves a large response.
Michael Petit is the president of Every Child Matters. He served as the state of Maine's human services commissioner, and as deputy of the Child Welfare League of America.
Comments
You might be right about that. I have noticed young girls from Mexico having babies at the age of 15. THe girl's family welcomes the baby with open arms and much love. In the American culture, in my life, I would have been thrown out of my house if I got pregnant at 15 and my parents would not have seen that child as their grandchild. So I see what you mean.
This, if nothing else, is a screaming indictment for single-payer health care (including mental vision and dental). Couple it with between 39th and 42nd in quality of life indicators including infant mortality and you have (or should have) all that is required to FORCE The "Fragmented States" to catch up, as in so many other areas but I'll bet that this leader (on the BBC) never even reaches the US owner-media, or if so, is relegated to a page somewhere beside the auto sales columns.
When I brought my new daughter from Indonesia to Scotland, a nurse was provided who came to the house once a week for the first three months per the national "Well baby" program + a free consignment of milk each week thrown in -and we didn't even apply for it!
Apparently "American Exceptionalism" includes, or should I say "EXCLUDES" it's own citizens!
So much for the land of Family values and "Pro-lifers": seemingly, when a fetus becomes a breathing being ex-womb, it's on it's own before it even has bootstraps to pull itself up by, except for those who can fit into the, as Billie Holliday sang "God Bless the Child Who's Got His Own" category.
Or, as Bob Dylan once wrote "The Pump Don't Work 'Cause The Vandals Took the Handles!"
America is beyond ready for a wake-up call.
does not have to punish more adults in the future.
Why is this? Probably because law-abiding people will comply, at least up to the point where they realize what they have gotten into. Those who are engaging in criminal behavior will not, which make for more work that social workers do not want to do, and the possibility of confrontation. Whether you abuse your child or not has little to do with whether you will end up dealing with Child Protection Services. Whether you rub someone the wrong way at your kid's school or whether you will "cooperate" is a far great factor.
You know whether you are treating your children properly or not (unless you are psychotic or a fundamentalist) . If a social worker tries to tell you differently, fight back from the first word, and eventually you'll be left alone. The bozo down the street who beats his kid is doing just that, and no one will ever stop him.