Why New Zealand children are abused..

After previously discovering such an increase in child abuse I pondered on why these statistics were so high. I was curious to examine the risk factors of child abuse and understand the causes behind this issue.

Further research lead me to explore three main factors which result in child abuse. Child Matters, Educating To Prevent Child Abuse (2010), states these factors “Can be found in the background of parents, in the environmental situation and attributes of the child themselves.” Parental factors include things such as parent suffered child abuse themselves, young unsupported parent, low educated parent, unrealistic expectations of the child, unwanted pregnancy and parent suffers mental illness or addiction. Furthermore environmental factors include such things as overcrowded households, poverty, family violence, an unrelated member of the household and family stresses. It then saddened me to come across what is considered the child’s attributes relating to abuse and what is seen as a risk for an individual. Child factors involve a sickly, colicky or unwanted baby, disability and minimal attachment between parent and child such as an outcome of an abusive relationship.

The question this information raised for me was why these factors have become such risks of abuse. I was then curious to discover the evidence of these risk factors and examine different perspectives.

Firstly I decided to analyse family violence and wished to discover whether there has been an increase in statistics. This allowed me to explore a family violence statistics fact sheet released by New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse (2009), which proved a visible increase in the “Total recorded family violence incidents and offences where children were present” (p. 2) In 2005 the figure reported 30,137, in 2006 32,057, in 2007 34,812, and in 2008 36,450, which equals an increase of 6,313 cases over four years. Furthermore according to the Women’s Refuge (2010), who provide “New Zealand domestic violence statistics” on average police attend one domestic violence case every seven minutes which equals around 200 situations a day. They also declared that in 2009/10 3,867 family violence cases appeared in the family court involving either one or more child/children.  

Next I chose to look further into the reasons behind family stresses such as divorce and sole parent families with no other income or a maximum of $100 per week (Work and Income, n.d.).

The Ministry Of Social Development (2011), provides a table which allowed me to discover how many sole parents received the Domestic Purposes Benefit (DPB) from 2006 to 2010. In 2006, 93,348 parents received this benefit, in 2007, 87,601, in 2008, 86,695, in 2009, 93,404, and in 2010, 99,284, which equals an increase of 5,936 sole parents receiving the DPB.

Further reading encouraged me to look deeper into New Zealand’s divorce rate, questioning whether or not there is an increase in this area. Statistics New Zealand (2012), states that one in three marriages end in divorce. Although surprisingly I discovered that divorce rates had decreased since 2005 to 2011 with the biggest drop being in 2009. However I also discovered the general marriage rate which states in 2011 there were 20,231 marriages in New Zealand which was the lowest number of marriages since 2001 when there was 19,972. Consequently due to one out of three marriages ending in divorce this is still considered to be a factor of stress upon families.

The next risk I chose to briefly examine was poverty within New Zealand families. The Children’s commissioner (2004), explains that in 2006/7 230,000 (22%) of New Zealand children were living in poverty. According to the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty (cited in Salmon, 2012) “approximately 270,000 New Zealand children grow up in poverty” which equals an increase of 40,000.  They also went on to explain that the poverty rate for children who are from a sole parent family is five times higher than children from a two parent family (differing from 49% to 9%).

This research has lead me to gain an understanding of why abuse statistics are so high, why New Zealand has one of the highest rates of physical abuse and one of the worst rates of child maltreatment within the family. Unfortunately even with an understanding of the reasons and risks causing such abuse in our society it is still disturbing that New Zealand, a place where I call home still has great room for improvement.

Next time..

Throughout this research I came across a video which provides multiple perspectives on a system that Paula Bennett, the Minister of Social Development, intends to put in place to protect at risk children. This has encouraged me to discover what policies the government puts in place, along with what organisations there are to protect our vulnerable children?

Link below

http://www.3news.co.nz/Bennett-Poverty-doesnt-excuse-child-abuse/tabid/370/articleID/272358/Default.aspx

Keep posted! (:

References

Child Matters Educating To Prevent Child Abuse, (2010). Risk factors of child abuse. 
     Retrieved 23 March, from http://www.childmatters.org.nz/57/learn-about-child-abuse/risk- 
     factors

New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse, (2009). Family violence statistics fact sheet. 
     Retrieved 23 March, from http://www.nzfvc.org.nz/sites/nzfvc.org.nz/files/factsheet-
     statistics-2009-1.pdf

Salmon, K., (2012). Child poverty our biggest enemy. Retrieved 23 March, from 
     http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/7655339/Child-poverty-our-biggest-enemy

Statstics New Zealand, (2012). Marriages, civil unions and divorces: Year ended December 
     2011. Retrieved 23 March, from 
     http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/people_and_communities/marriages-civil-
     unions-and-divorces/MarriagesCivilUnionsandDivorces_HOTPYeDec11.aspx

The Children's Commissioner, (2004). Child poverty in New Zealand. Retrieved 23 March, 
     from http://www.occ.org.nz/home/childpoverty/about_child_poverty

Women's Refuge, (2010). New Zealand domestic violence statistics. Retrieved 23 March, 
     from https://womensrefuge.org.nz/WR/Domestic-violence/Statistics.htm

Work and Income, (n.d.). Domestic purposes benefit. Retrieved 23 March from,  
     http://statistical-report-
     2010.msd.govt.nz/main+benefits/domestic+purposes+benefits/number+of+recipients+
     %96+domestic+purposes+benefit