Monday 9 March 2009

Wronged parents need the oxygen of publicity

Full Article: http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/news/archive/2009/march/06/01.htm


We hear the tragic details of children left in danger. But we must not silence the families of those removed unjustly
''They're ripping lives apart and no one knows,'' says one kind colleague who has rashly offered to return some of the phone calls I get from people trying to get their children back from social services, or to stop them being taken away. She is staggered by the volume of misery, powerlessness and desperation that this issue provokes almost every day. And that it is almost invisible outside.
We all see the tragedies that go the other way. Baby P is imprinted on our minds. When the Audit Commission warned yesterday that thousands of children may be at risk of neglect and abuse in parts of the country because of shambolic child protection systems, we all have vivid images of the horror that can result if social workers do not intervene.
Yet we have almost no idea of what happens when the same shambolic systems intervene in the wrong lives.
When children die, they have no ''privacy'' left, so the media tell their story. But if children are taken from loving families and placed with strangers, their “privacy” makes their views the property of the State, to be translated only by the State.

No comments: