Celebrating Families
Judith Collins
13th February 2004
National Party Family Spokesperson
CYF in need of some Tender Loving Care
I have a huge amount of sympathy for CYF social workers who get to pick up the pieces of failed welfare policies and
the break down of families. These people get the blame for what is going on in New Zealand where mothers and fathers can
simply abandon any sense of responsibility for their actions and the New Zealand taxpayer is expected to pay for it and
the social workers are expected to fix the problem. Given the myriad of cases highlighted by the media in the last year,
there is no denying Child, Youth and Family needs some help. In order to glean some understanding of why this department
is under such terrible stress, I recently asked for some information from Associate Minister for CYFS and Minister of
Women's Affairs Ruth Dyson.
I asked if she knew how many children in the care of CYFS came from households where their two biological parents lived
together. I asked whether CYFS kept statistics relating to the occupations of caregivers of children under CYFS
wardship. I asked if CYFS kept statistics relating to the educational performance of children in CYFS.
Invariably, the answer was that this type of information is not collated. Instead, CYFS collates information on the
ethnicity of children in its care, which apparently is more important than the family situation of the child. CYFS even
labels "Australian" as an ethnicity. How PC is that?
The anti-child pornography group ECPAT New Zealand revealed this week that children as young as ten have been involved
in prostitution in New Zealand. A recent study of 303 sex workers in the Christchurch area identified 12 prostitutes
under the age of 18. The Prostitution Reform Act, decriminalised pimping and confirmed the illegality of anyone under 18
being a prostitute. Apparently, nobody told the young prostitutes about the law change. I wonder what the Prostitutes
Collective is going to do about this? A questionnaire distributed to prostitutes elicited 47 responses, and revealed
that only seven were living with both parents at the time they entered prostitution.
Sex abuse victim
The plight of a (now) 16 year old Sri Lankan sex abuse victim touched my heart. Having reviewed her file and all reports
and judgments, I could not help wonder why there was no room in New Zealand for her when there seems to be so much room
for men of military age ( and their extended families) from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking refugee status - now that both
those countries have been liberated from their oppressive regimes. I was struck by the negative response from
Immigration Associate Minister Damien O'Connor who in 1999 felt that convicted drug dealers from Germany should be
allowed to stay on compassionate grounds but clearly not a young girl who had been the victim of abuse. It seems to me
that this girl has given the government the opportunity to show just how tough it can be on innocent child immigrants we
have just taken in. I know we can't help everyone. Does that mean we can't help anyone?
ENDS