Hundreds in Ashburton stand together against child abuse

This article from www.theashburtonguardian.co.nz August 9 2007

Inner town workers and shoppers joined together yesterday in East Street to observe three minutes' silence to re-enforce their desire for New Zealand to take action against its high levels of child abuse.

Hundreds of people across the Ashburton District stood in silence for three minutes yesterday as part of a national protest against child abuse.
At 12 minutes past midday, people left their places of work, parked their cars, came out of their homes in every corner of New Zealand, to send a clear message to abusive parents that the ordinary New Zealander has had enough.
The three minutes' silence was organsied by lobby groups Family First NZ, the Sensible Sentencing Trust and For the Sake of Our Children Trust.
The three minutes represented the three years of the life of Rotorua toddler Nia Glassie who died last week from injuries allegedly inflicted by members of her extended family.
The time of day was chosen as it signified the 12 children who die from child abuse each year in New Zealand.
In Ashburton schools and pre-schools also encouraged students to take part in the national protest.
For the Sake of Our Children spokeswoman Christine Rankin said the nationwide vigil had been a success.
Child abusers needed to be given harsher jail terms and prohibited from ever raising children again, she said.
"If they have (more children) they should be taken away immediately — remove the child as soon as it's born."
Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman Garth McVicar agreed with the call for tougher penalties for child abuse.
"We know deterrent sentences work; they've worked in seatbelts and they've worked in speeding, they'll work here as well."
He said he believed an urgent bill to increase jail terms for child abusers would appear before parliament shortly.
Family First spokesman Bob McCoskrie said organisers deliberately planned the protest to be as simple as possible, so that wherever people were they could take a moment to reflect on how they could make a difference to the child abuse problem.
"Let's face it — the three minutes was a symbolic gesture, but it was really designed to change the mindsets of people, from pointing the finger and 'Who's to blame?' to 'How can I be part of the solution?'"

Nia Killed by Whanau

Great. Four more bags of nameless filth for the taxpayer to support in prison. A three-year old girl is dead. And what do these sewer-rats get? A laughably short "sentence" of "rehabilitation" from which they will be out on bail before you can say "Jack Robinson". It's time for the government to set an example, and for justice to be done. As if the Coral Burrows case didn't sicken you enough, we now have four "whanau" or family in on a horrific and systematic torture and finally murder of a helpless, innocent little child who was in their care.

Bring back the death penalty. These lowlife deserve nothing better than life-time hard labour, or more ideally, 20,000 volts through their system and then bury them in cheap coffins made from pinus-radiata.

How many more little children need to be brutally murdered and molested?
How many more stupid, unworkable pieces of legislation that do more harm than good need to be pushed upon everyday New Zealanders?
How many more beurocrats such as Cindy Kiro and Sue Bradford do we need telling us that "smacking escelates into child abuse"?

The following excellent article on such a terrible event is from this website.

Michael Curtis (L) and William Curtis

Oriwa Kemp (L) and Michael Pearson

ALL MURDERERS-ALL DRUNKS-ALL DRUG TAKERS-CHILD KILLERS-ALL WHANAU.

Nia Glassie's step-grandfather allegedly wrapped a scarf twice around her neck, then lifted her off the ground and strangled her with it until she turned purple.
After 10 seconds, he is said to have thrown her to the ground and verbally abused her when she cried.
These were among new details of the abuse allegedly suffered by the 3-year-old revealed yesterday.
They surfaced at a bail hearing for three of the five people accused of abusing the toddler.
All three were denied bail amid a heavy police, media and family presence in the Rotorua District Court.
Judge Chris McGuire said part of the reason he refused bail was because the trio and the victim came from the same family, and there was a risk of interference with witnesses.
"For now, the victim herself, Nia Glassie, is silent forever from giving her own views. It does seem to me that child victims may on occasions like this deserve a voice beyond the immediate family."
Nia died in the Starship hospital last Friday after eight days in a coma with head and abdominal injuries. Her cousin, Michael Pearson, 19, and 17-year-old Oriwa Kemp, who is the partner of Nia's stepfather's brother, were first to apply for bail.It is alleged that they and Nia's stepfather, Wiremu Curtis, 17, and his brother, Michael Curtis, 21, assaulted Nia.
Judge McGuire said the four were allegedly responsible for "a series of events of cruelty and hurt to a very young child" which included Nia being "locked in a clothes dryer and the clothes dryer turned on".
He said two children were witnesses and had provided evidence to police but he suppressed their identity to protect their privacy. A neighbour had also seen Nia picked up by a leg and thrown at the clothesline by the group.
She was allegedly spun from the line by her ankle until she fell off and was also seen running around on the roof of the house while the adults looked up and laughed.

There was also an allegation she was left at her kohanga reo in a filthy state and smelling of cannabis. (WHY DIDNT THEY REPORT THIS FACT?) The judge remanded the two in custody until a pre-depositions hearing on September 27. Pearson consented but Kemp - who kept her face to the ground for most of the 90-minute hearing - did not and the judge ordered her to reappear on Tuesday. He also denied bail to William Curtis, 47, Nia's step-grandfather, who is charged with assaulting her and injuring her with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.Curtis' alleged offending relates to an earlier period and police say that, unlike the other four, he is not likely to face further charges.The allegations that he abused Nia were made by his daughter, who said he would walk up to Nia and push her on to the ground or into the wall, had slapped her face and threatened to stomp on her head.Gasps could be heard in court as Judge McGuire related the incident with the scarf, saying it had led to the grievous bodily harm charge. Curtis consented to be remanded in custody for a predepositions hearing on September 27.A bail hearing for Michael Curtis will be held next Wednesday. Wiremu Curtis is due in Auckland District Court on Monday.

Garth George: Weak, stupid responses to the evil of child abuse

5:00AM Thursday August 02, 2007
from www.nzherald.co.nz

Garth George

The merciless abuse of two Rotorua tots is not a scandal. That is far too mild a word to describe such atrocities.

Nor is it enough to call these a national disgrace or national shame. They are both, but the nearest anyone has come to an adequate description is Michael Laws who, writing on Sunday, described them as "evil".

He is right, but I'll go further: they are positively satanic, for only the Prince of Darkness could so corrupt a society that it could breed Homo sapiens who get sadistic pleasure in torturing and injuring their own young.

And take it from me, the Devil is just as alive and kicking today as he was in Old Testament times. He remains, after all, the prince of this world. What is a scandal are the nonsensical knee-jerk reactions of politicians and others and the ideas they come up with.

This has happened before several times, the last the furore that followed the deaths last year of the Kahui twins. But as Peter Dunne says, all that has been achieved is "a large amount of hand-wringing and navel gazing".

The stupidity of the Government's first initiative is almost incomprehensible. It proposes to have all women visiting public hospitals asked about family violence. What that hopes to achieve is beyond my grasp.

Acting Social Development Minister Steve Maharey says frontline health workers in hospitals will try to find out whether there is violence in a family and whether any kind of assistance can be given.

This is preposterous, and if those frontline health workers have a grain of sense they will not have a bar of it.

Otherwise, they'll wear it, for I can imagine the reaction of a number of my female friends if they were asked such a question when turning up at accident and emergency for treatment, for instance, of a cut finger.

And imagine what such questioning might do to a woman who has been admitted to hospital having been diagnosed with a dread disease and who is in a state of acute anxiety, fear or even shock?

In any case, the last thing the very women who are targeted by this absurd proposal are going to do is to admit to anything to someone they don't know and probably don't trust.

And rightly so. To whom do these inquisitive front-line health workers report if their suspicions are aroused? To some social worker, perhaps, who might misconstrue the patient's responses and try to interfere when no interference is necessary?

What about privacy concerns? Are communications between patients and medical professionals no longer privileged?

Meanwhile Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro throws up her hands in horror and rabbits on about the need for educational programmes. Which is all very well, except that the sort of mental retards who abuse and kill children are ineducable.

Then there's the Maori issue, for there are five times as many Maori children abused and killed each year than in any other ethnic group.

Maori Party leader Pita Sharples whines that he feels ashamed and guilty over these latest abominations but in the next breath insists - in spite of all the evidence - that child abuse among Maori is not a problem that can be reduced to ethnicity.

Wrong, Dr Sharples. If Maori are killing Maori children then it could well be an ethnic problem and it is time that he and the entire leadership of the Maori race took ownership of it.

Maori activists are always crying out to be allowed to find Maori answers to Maori problems. Well, here is one of the biggest problems facing Maori today and their leaders had better get off their butts and find some answers.

And I mean answers, because all we have seen up to now is the usual - trying to apply sticking-plaster solutions to symptoms instead of diagnosing and organising treatment for the causes. These are always much more difficult and expensive to treat but, that aside, the trouble is that most of those in political, social and ethnic leadership wouldn't recognise the root causes if they jumped up and bit them.

Things like the breakdown of families (whanau included), neighbourhoods and communities. Poverty and welfare dependency running from generation to generation. An exploitive low-wage economy. A nanny state that interferes with parenting. A disinclination to enforce the laws on school attendance. A drinking age that's too low and a drug supply that seems to grow exponentially. Continuous sex and violence on television and in movies. And a public morality that says anything goes, including open-slather abortion.

That's just some of them. And even if by some miracle our leaders did begin to understand that these sorts of things lie at the root of our national malaise, it would still take a least a generation to even begin to fix them. Then again, perhaps it's already too late.

Call for Kiro to step down

"Children's commissioner" Cindy Kiro uses child-abuse cases as fuel for her vision of socialization. "Clausen claims that theories of socialization are to be found in Plato, MontaigneRousseau and he identifies a dictionary entry from 1828 that defines 'socialize' as 'to render social, to make fit for living in society'"1. She tells of a constant stream of complaints from citizens saying that they are fed up with our shocking child-abuse statistics.

Instead of apologising to New Zealand, to every decent mum and dad and handing in her resignation after her doing such a shoddy job, she turns round and has the audacity to say "It is very heartening to see so many people wanting to make a difference". However, this is not the point that Kiwis are trying to get across to their anti-democratic government which doesn't listen to them. Stifled by layer upon layer of bureaucracy, we are kicked in the teeth and told that "With more investment in programmes and systems..." we can combat child-abuse.

Kiro states: "My Office is currenting working through the many offers we have received so that we can establish the best use of them." Why can't she leave us alone? New Zealanders didn't ask for imported Swedish laws, reeking of communism to further screw up our Country.

Sue Bradford states "Consideration should also be given to Childrens Commissioner Cindy Kiro's proposition that all children be tracked from birth, to ensure at least one external person or group has an eye on the child's welfare. The answer doesn't lie in making our welfare system even more repressive - especially when a Health Ministry survey released yesterday shows half of teenagers are 'victims of violence'," Ms Bradford says. 2.

These are dangerous, dangerous ideas and plans that these extremist, communistic Beaurocrats are working on. New Zealanders would do well to stay informed as we approach local body elections and then the general election.

1. from Wikipedia.org
2. from www.scoop.co.nz

Below is the article.
---------------------------------------------
New Zealand reaches child abuse tipping point

Thursday, 2 August 2007, 11:24 am
Press Release: Office of the Children's Commissioner

Children's Commissioner, Dr Cindy Kiro, believes that New Zealand has
reached a tipping point and we will no longer tolerate the abuse of our
most vulnerable citizens - our children.

"This week, my Office has been inundated by contact from people of all
walks of life who have enough of hearing about yet an other abused
child. These people have something very important in common - they all
want to do something to help. They may have ideas on what needs to be
done. They may want to donate their time or their money. They may be
well-known New Zealanders who want to use their profile to raise
awareness of the issues and what can be done," says Dr Kiro."

"My Office is currenting working through the many offers we have
received so that we can establish the best use of them."

"It is very heartening to see so many people wanting to make a
difference.
I believe that we are moving from a situation of saying that 'someone
else should do something about this' to one of 'I want to do something
about this'."

"There is a place for individuals, families, communities, government and
society to all do something about this issue."

"We need investment in education and better health outcomes for children
and boosting the ability of community organisations to work with
government to deliver services that support children and families."

"I believe that the establishment of an plan for every child through an
integrated framework for children and their families that would provide
a foundation for more co-ordinated strategies. An integrated framework
would bring a systematic child-focused approach to monitoring the
development of every child and young person in New Zealand through
co-ordinated planned assessment at key life stages and supporting
families to make sure children have the opportunity to reach their full
potential. The assessments would take into account the whole child:
their physical, social, educational, emotional, and psychological
development."

"With more investment in programmes and systems and the goodwill and
actions of ordinary New Zealanders, I believe we can combat child abuse
and improve the lives of our children," says Dr Kiro.

Direct Democracy Party: "The Village" killed this child

Direct Democracy Press Release | 4 August 07
this article from www.ddp.co.nz

"It is time for the media, social service agencies, and the community at large to stop buying into the lie of "it takes a village to raise a child" says the Deputy Leader of the Direct Democracy Party (www.ddp.co.nz), Steve Taylor.

"It was this utopian "village" that was responsible for killing Nia Glassie, just as it was this same utopian village that has resulted in the deaths of so many other children in New Zealand. It does not take a village to raise a child: it takes two loving and committed parents within the empirically safest family unit available – the nuclear family" says Mr Taylor.

"Whenever there is a crisis such as the Nia Glassie case, the media perform the same toxic dance with the devil: they go to the very people who have no answers or solutions to offer: people like the Children's Commissioner; University academics; CYF; Women's Refuge; or a plethora of state funded agencies and spokespeople. The media then report untested ideological claptrap from these same people as if the content was on a par with the Ten Commandments".

"When a society, (aided and abetted by Government) intentionally and consistently undermines natural law, then the consequences for doing so are plain for all to see".

"Parents have been marginalised and dismissed by minority-motivated legislative intent, undermining their natural authority in the home; all family forms are considered of equal value in terms of bringing up children, when the science is unequivocal that this is not the case; placing abused children within families that have fostered and thus sanction such abuse is an accepted "best practice" of Child, Youth, and Family; actively removing fathers from the lives of their children is championed in Law and often facilitated by the Family Court; a morally relative-based fear of placing any "stigma" or "judgement" on those who rightly deserve to be both stigmatised and judged has resulted in any societal behaviour essentially being deemed "contextual", as opposed to "bad and wrong" behaviour being appropriately labelled "bad and wrong".

"This Alice-in-Wonderland perspective that seems to have integrated itself into the national psyche needs an antidote – as a start society and its leaders as a whole needs to start siding with reality, as opposed to ideological fantasy, when looking to address issues such as child abuse and family breakdown".

"The "takes a village" concept needs to be consigned to the scrapheap of failed, misguided, and dangerous interventions - the "takes a village" concept never has worked, and never will work. Rather, empowering individual families to get their own house in order is the answer to the problem - absent of invasive and intrusive state intervention deceptively packaged as a "village" says Mr Taylor.

Anti-Smacking Law Diverting Police Resources From

Friday, 3 August 2007, 12:22 pm
Press Release: Family First
www.familyfirst.org.nz

The anti-smacking law is wasting valuable police time and resources when police should be focusing their energies on actual child abuse like the two recent Rotorua cases.

A Howick-Otara police family violence coordinator has highlighted a case of an 11-year-old calling 111 and complaining to the police after being corrected by his parents. The police say he had learnt about the law at school and was misinformed.

"The anti-smacking bill has placed healthy and reasonable discipline into abuse categories and police are now wasting time having to investigate complaints of what is simply appropriate and reasonable parental correction," says Family First National Director Bob McCoskrie.

"The police should be focusing their energy on investigating drug and alcohol offences, domestic violence, violent crimes and actual child abuse, rather than being distracted by complaints from children who don't like correction and boundaries from their parents."

Similar cases have surfaced in Sweden including a recent case of a 6-year-old ringing the police because she was angry at her mother for not being given a handbag like her mother's. Police time was wasted investigating the malicious claim.

"Although we want children to speak up when there is violence in their homes, the anti-smacking law has resulted in appropriate parental correction being interpreted as 'parent assault'and having to be investigated. Not only are parents confused by the law, but children are too," says Mr McCoskrie.

"Good parents are being targeted by this flawed law, diverting our attention from the at-risk families we should be working with."

Marc My Words: Child Abuse Part Of Wider Problem

Friday, 3 August 2007
Press Release: Marc Alexander

In the wrong hands an article on child abuse could be rolled up as a weapon

If there was a standard theme throughout the last week or so, it was the issue of child abuse. Again. Yes, we are horrified by the inhumanity exposed within a family who saw fit to throw blocks of wood at three-year-old Nia Glassie in a sand-pit; strung up like a rag-doll on the clothes line; and tossed into a tumble dryer like a woolen sock. This is our outrage du jour. We've had them before and, despite the ridiculous optimism of Sue Bradford's determinedly anti-family 'Anti-Smacking legislation' to "send a message"; it has conclusively proved its lack of worth. Abusive parents over-whelmingly ignored both her "message" and the subsequent law change. Nia's abuser's actions carried on unperturbed and brought to a halt by the embarrassment of being caught...

Read the rest of the article here.