Guest Post: Backyard Cricket for All!

A guest post from National MP Katrina Shanks:

Backyard Cricket for All!

I’m sitting at my desk, staring at the jandal tan lines on my feet reminiscing about the great summer holiday the kids and I just had. Beach, sunshine, BBQ, and a whole lot of backyard cricket. I love living in New Zealand.

For most Kiwis summer is about relaxing and enjoying life – but when you read a story of a nine-year-old girl hiding in a cupboard starving, dehydrated and anaemic from internal bleeding, you know that not every child can be so lucky.

Minister of Social Welfare, Hon Paula Bennett has launched an independent inquiry into this horrific case of abuse and neglect. These are the stories we hear about – but what about the child who lives at the end of the road who is forgotten?

More than 125,000 reports were made to authorities from people concerned about the safety or wellbeing of a child last year. The United Nations is concerned about children’s rights in New Zealand and our “staggering” child an infant mortality rate.

Last year Paula Bennett described a neglected child as a silent time bomb – “left alone, unwashed and unloved these children may not be physically bruised or injured but they will be deeply affected”.

These children don’t get a summer holiday. They don’t get to play backyard cricket or go to the beach. Some live in fear, some go hungry and worse still, some are forgotten about.

My friend, who’s a dietician, sees this every day. Parents bring their children in severely malnourished, listless, and glassy eyed. Their brains have not developed properly because they have not been fed, they have not been nurtured, and they have not been loved. These children will fall behind at school. They will find it difficult to get a job or to fit into society. This will be their life.

To me this is inexcusable. We live in New Zealand. We have an extensive social welfare system. We have benefits, accommodation supplements, food grants, temporary additional support and the list goes on. We have NGOs like the Salvation Army and the Red Cross who are always willing to help out. We have food banks. We have communities. We have neighbours.

Neglect of a child is identified in legislation as serious but it’s not actually defined by New Zealand law. The Law Commissions review of the Crimes Act (2009) proposes that the term neglect is replaced by a gross negligence test; in effect this will provide a definition of neglect. This is a recommendation that I strongly believe the Government should consider.

The National-led Government is working on solutions. The Never Shake a Baby campaign, First Response pilot, introducing social workers into hospitals to help identify children at risk of abuse, improved monitoring systems, Home for Life, supported housing, and help for teenage mum and dads.

But all New Zealanders need to step up and look around. We must not turn a blind eye to child abuse. We must look out for neglect in our communities and in our schools. We must place the protection and safety of the child first.

I have a vision of a New Zealand where all Kiwi kids have the best opportunities in life: Education, food, the freedom to go to the beach or play backyard cricket, love. I have a vision where Kiwi kids don’t just have a right to life, but where they have the right to live.

I don’t think there is any issue that upsets me as much as child abuse. It just goes so against normal human nature. I think most of us get upset seeing any child in distress – even those which are total strangers. So I will never understand how people can bash and torture their own kids. I don’t like to acknowledge they are even part of the same species as me.

The sad thing is that the abusers were often abused themselves. That is not an excuse, but it is a reality.  If one can break the cycle of abuse, it probably saves future generations also.