Why are we killing our children?

New Zealand's rate of child murders is fourth-worst in the developed world. Why are so many of our children dying?often at the hands of their parents?
The issue
? A long-overdue report by Child, Youth and Family Services has found that the number of children under 15 killed by maltreatment fell from 50 in 1994-98 to 38 in 1999-2003. ? This represented a drop from 1.2 to 0.9 deaths for every 100,000 children, putting NZ fourth-worst behind Mexico, the US and Hungary out of 27 developed nations. ? Maori children died at the rate of 1.5 for every 100,000 and Pakeha children at 0.7 per 100,000, compared with 0.7 in Australia, 0.6 in Japan, 0.4 in Britain and 0.1 in Spain. ? Babies under a year old are at much higher risk in NZ than elsewhere, accounting for 30 per cent of all child deaths from maltreatment here against 24 per cent in other developed countries. ? Risk factors for parents are listed as poverty, low education, unemployment, youth, mental illness including drug or alcohol abuse, being the victim of family violence as a child and having a history of offending. ? A Dunedin study found that young women who had children before they turned 21 were twice as likely to have been victims of family violence. ? Men who fathered children before they turned 21 were more than three times as likely as other men to abuse their partners. ? Another study found that 81 per cent of children killed in 1991-2000 were killed by a family member. Of those killed by a parent, 54 per cent were killed by their father or stepfather, 40 per cent by their mother and 6 per cent by both parents. ? In the past four years, substantiated cases of abuse or neglect have risen by 62 per cent to 10,687.
The Argument
? Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia says the report shows child deaths peaked in the late 1980s and 1990s when unemployment also peaked and benefits were cut. ''It's time the Government woke up to the reality of economic violence . . . when people are impoverished by being deprived of access to power and resources, putting human dignity in danger.'' ? The Christian Council of Social Services ''fails'' the Government on care and protection of children. Spokesman Shaun Robinson: ''If this was an outbreak of typhoid killing and maiming our children, the whole nation would unite behind a plan to end it. Why on earth can't we understand this is the same? There is no simple quick fix, but there are solutions.'' ? It rates the Government one out of 10 for ''a systematic approach'' because Child, Youth and Family Services has been restructured at least five times since 1992. ? Two out of 10 for clarifying who does what about the problem. ? Two out of 10 for co-ordinating all the state and community agencies involved. ? Four out of 10 for funding. CYFS' budget had been increased, but ''no serious effort has been made to improve resourcing to non-government preventive services''. ? Five out of 10 for ''doing the right things'', including efforts to give young people permanent homes instead of repeated short-term ones. ? Five out of 10 for training more social workers and paying them adequately. ? Overall, it put the score at three out of 10, calling for more funding to community agencies, especially for preventive work with families rather than waiting for a crisis.