Does Every Child Matter?


At the beginning of the year I attended a conference on Every Child Matters, a policy that came about in 2000 when the tragic cruelty happened to Victoria Climbre. I had only read about this tragedy around that time, but never really read into what happened and the events that happened before and after the poor girls death.
I was shocked and tried to write a post about how I felt, mostly anger at how this country had failed a child and all those people that were involved and yet did nothing to prevent it. I could not find the words as it upset me alot and so I left it to come back at another time.
At that time I thought that nothing like that could ever happen again as policies were put into action and strict laws were brought in, to ensure that children would not be over looked in this way again. It got to me that it took the horrendous death of an 8 year old to highlight the holes in the system that we had faith in.
But the damage had been done and it was said that it should never happen again, until 2003 when Ian Huntley a school employee and sick pedo abducted two 10 year old girls and murdered them in his house. He lied to the cameras and even went looking for them until he was found out and the government brought in the CRB check compulsory for anyone who would be in contact with children. Again an action that was enforced at the cost of the lives of children.
It saddens me that today's Britain is in such a mess that it cannot look after those who are most precious to it.
This past week we have seen the death of seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq, a girl from Birmingham that was allowed to starve to death. Along with her siblings the child was left with no food while the mother and stepfather stuffed their faces for reason yet unknown, but one theory has been voiced that it was some religious ritual, this has yet to be proven.
The parents are converts to Islam (surprise surprise) the religion of peace, and they kept there children in doors at all times after they were taken out of school by their parents because they claimed the children were being bullied.
Social Services had bee alerted but again failed to follow up the call and check in on the children. This seems very similar to Victoria Climbre.

How can children starve to death in Britain?, the country that constantly helps the third world in their fight against poverty and hunger. We continue to open our doors to help those less fortunate and welcome people into our country and yet we are unable to help and look after our own. One of the children mentioned was not of this country and yet it happened. Surely its a sign that this country is starting to feel the effect of over crowding, the public services can not cope with the increasing population. The police find it hard to work the streets, hospitals are over crowded with a shortage of doctors, social services are incompetent, the schools are in need of updating and the prisons are taking to releasing criminals early due to over crowding.
Yet the fat cats in Westminster continue to pay up for the two houses and extravagant grocery lists and when a child is the subject of some horrendous cruelty they come together and produce some white paper on how to prevent it from happening again. Faith in the system is becoming translucent and doubt that any government new or old can provide confidence into this country that its people the true people of Britain will and can be looked after. When will it be that we will all feel as though someone out there who we pay for is actually doing their jobs right.

6 comments:

Michelle said...

"How can children starve in Britain?"

All I can say is, I feel the same way about the US...not that I don't want our contry to help other countries, but I feel sad about all the thousands and thousands of children going hungry right here at home.

Michelle said...

er, country. Typed too fast

monkey said...

the problem is people have this perception that we have it so good that we have to help those less fortunate, however the reality is our country is not far from third worlds ruin.

Shawn McManus said...

I think a lot of it stems from people failing to act. They are afraid of criminal or civil reprisals or simply afraid of being called a racist.

A lot of the problems in Washington (for the U.S.) are law makers who are looking for solutions to problems that are not theirs to solve but are quick to spend money on solutions that may or may not work.

Shawn McManus said...

I should also add, the folks in Washington D.C. are quick to spend money on problems anywhere in the world - not just the U.S.

monkey said...

Money that should be spent on the Tax Payer.
Its so very true, and over here we suffer the same problems and punish those who mix their garbage to pay for it.