The Abuses Faced by Children in the United Kingdom Essay

The Abuses set about by Children in the United Kingdom - Essay ExampleThis research will begin with the narration that the story of capital of Seychelles Climbie may simply be seen as the story of two cruel adults, single innocent tyke, and a breach of trust of savage, unimaginable proportions. Entrusted by her parents in the Ivory Coast to her huge aunt Marie Therese Kouao so that she could be given a better life in the United Kingdom, small-scale Victoria instead found herself in the hands of sadists --- Kouao and her boyfriend Carl Manning. When she died on 25 February 2000, she had 128 separate injuries on her body, cigarette burns, scars where she had been hit by a bike chain and hammer blows to her toes. The investigation also bring out that she was forced to sleep in the bin liner in the bath. And yet, it is also the story of institutions that have failed our children, a bureaucracy that has neglected the most vulnerable members of our society, and individual officials whose individual omissions have resulted in collective negligence. In the hearings subsequent to the death of Victoria Climbie, it was discovered that she was seen by dozens of social workers, medical practiti unmatchedrs, and police officers still all of them failed to either detect signs of abuse or failed to act on them until it was too late. The inquiry revealed that in that respect were as many as 12 opportunities were the authorities could have intervened but failed to. For example, when Dr. Mary Schwartz, a pediatrician, looked at Climbies cuts wounds, she dismissed it as scabies and sent her back home to her abusers.Police officer Karen Jones refused to bring down the home of the Kouao and Manning, where Climbie lived, because she was afraid she would catch scabies from the furniture. Bickering and backstabbing the child protection service in the Haringey field of operations had also contributed to the failure to provide immediate and adequate response to the abuse. Desp ite a major tell-tale sign, i.e., Victoria was not enrolled in school, which is one of the indicators that an abuse could be taking place, social workers took the word of Manning and Kouao at appear value and did not probe any further. Though Victorias abusers were eventually sent to remand and sentenced to life imprisonment, the hard questions still remain. How could this kind of abuse so horrible and grotesque to a child of tender years have gone undetected? Is the system so decrepit, so shot amply of holes that despite many warning signs and many opportunities to save Victorias life, she still ended up battered and dead, with 128 injuries on her frail body? And perhaps the most troubling question of all could this play again? Dare we allow this to happen again? In response to the widespread shock and peevishness resulting from the completely avoidable death of the eight-year-old child, an inquiry was conducted, headed by Lord Laming, who called the Victoria Climbie affair the worse character reference of neglect (he) has ever heard of. Notably, Laming found that the legislative framework was intrinsically sound,, the problem was mainly one of implementation. Health secretary Alan Milburn said, Victorias death was a tragedy. It is vital that all agencies dealing with children learn the lesson from this terrible case. The Laming newspaper publisher came up with several recommendations, including the following (Batty, 2003) The creation of a children and families board chaired by a senior regimen minister to coordinate policies and initiatives that have a bearing on the wellbeing of children and families. A national mental representation for children and families, led by a childrens commissioner, should be established to ensure local services put together national standards for child protection and implement reforms. Committees for children and families should be established by councils, with members drawn from social services, education, housin g, the NHS and the police. immature local management boards chaired by council chief executives with members from the police, health, social services,