Youth Week upon us - child safety abysmal

Candor Trust media release

Too little, too late is Candor Trust's view of Dr Kiro's calls for accountability over the killings of the Kahui children. When a Nanny State embraces lack of any real accountability with a matrix of policies tailor made to erode civil society, such events are predictable.

Kiro's cry for personal accountability when the worst happens raises the question as to where is the call for accountability when early antisocial behaviours like tagging occur. This destructive behaviour is tied by the protaganists themselves to narcissistic motives.

Does accountability start in the form of strong messages of approbium being conveyed at Family Group Conferences? Or are these mere attention-fests for the "offenders", given such stigmatising labels are still permitted under the PC rules.

Are people attending such meetings asserting tagging to be an artform regardless of the illicit context, and despite deliberate destructiveness being a clear signpost of teens being on slippery slopes?

And why are so many happy to pander to such hazy thinking. Perhaps they seek to protect teen rebels from "the law" which has clearly stretched it's long arms out to selectively grab them.

But these defenses against a history of Policing - one that sadly isn't colour blind also has the undesirable effect of nursing, pandering to and elevating disrespect of the law. An attitude of deepseated disrespect is too often prone to be generalised.

And where is the call for accountability regarding the most frequent and dangerous form of antisocial behaviour affecting at risk kids? That most innocuous form is of course garden variety impaired driving. Weekly DUI supplies vulnerable children with Kahui twin like injuries to our hospitals.

Road Traffic Crashes are the number 1 reason New Zealand children lead in trauma sustained, and drugs and alcohol (not speed near schools) are inarguably the main fuel for the epidemic.

Candor Trust notes, on the eve of youth week that no action has yet been taken by a Childrens Commissioner, now baying for blood over a rare type event, to rectify the worst deficit in accountability in NZ.

This has been identified by the Trust as deficits in CYPFS assessments. Frameworks used are woefully inadequate regarding preservation of childrens right to be transported by caregivers who are neither drunk nor drugged.

Until this is rectified there will be many children experiencing equivalent suffering to the Kahui twins, who will fly under the radar (except for International traffic databases), and whose circumstances fail to stir public outrage.

Media typically censors child deaths wrought by caregivers who drive under the influence, out of the narrative. It would seem the problem of rolemodelling risky antisocial behaviour is hidden by Police communications when the worst happens - just for decencies sake.

Youth are invited to register their protest at the neglect of their road safety by this Government, by entering Candor's youth week poster competition. Details are on the youthweek website and the deadline is extended to the 1 May.

Ends

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