Monsters who hurt kids deserve far worse than a slap on the wrist | Rebecca Whitfield-Baker

Those who hurt society’s most vulnerable deserve the most severe deterrent – but too often their punishment is woefully inadequate, writes Rebecca Whitfield-Baker.

There is nothing more joyous than the birth of a precious baby, the first steps of a chubby toddler, a child’s excitement on reading aloud their first book, a teenager’s pride at passing a driving test.

Children are something to cherish and childhood is something to embrace as a wondrous, innocent time when each moment offers something new to learn and discover; when kids are given the building blocks for a happy and healthy life.

Yet, the heartbreaking reality is, too many children aren’t being given the childhood they deserve, too many are being let down by the adults who ought to protect them.

I am talking about the shocking rates of child neglect, sex abuse and other forms of abuse happening in Australia, the so-called Lucky Country, in 2023.

It’s estimated nationally there are more than 46,000 children now in out-of-home care, a staggering statistic that sadly only tells part of the story.

In March, I met a delightful 12-year-old, in Year 7 at Prince Alfred College who told me he’d always be grateful for finding his loving, “forever family” as a toddler.

Josh shared how he’d lived in five different foster care homes in his UK birth country before being adopted aged 15 months and moving with his parents and younger brother to live in Adelaide.

Childhood ought to be something to embrace as a wondrous, innocent time when each moment offers something new to learn and discover. Picture: iStock

“I just think about how lucky I am to be part of an amazing family,” he told me as he readied for a fundraising excursion to raise money for Hope in a Suitcase, a charity that provides essential items to kids entering foster care. If only there were more stories like Josh.

Instead, each day the news media is littered with the most shocking of stories involving the ill-treatment of beautiful little people – often by the people who are supposed to care most.

We hear tragic stories of children who are robbed of the chance to be kids; to laugh, twirl and dance carefree in the sun or kick a footy in glorious rain and mud, in the knowledge they’ll be given a warm shower and wrapped in comfort when they get home.

Last weekend Sunday Mail reporter Lauren Novak took us inside the state’s child abuse call centre, having been granted exclusive access.

In the past 12 months, it has received more than 61,000 calls with 43,000-plus more electronic reports lodged by worried teachers, police officers, doctors, neighbours and family members.

In her short time there our reporter learned of health workers’ concerns about a two-year-old with a sexually transmitted disease and the need for five neglected siblings to be rescued from a squalid home and drug-addicted parents.

She heard first-hand a shocking case in which multiple calls were received about a violent assault on a child by their mother “using a clenched fist … punching her five-year-old to the stomach numerous times in public.”

Shift supervisor and 30-year veteran of child protection in SA, Tiina Mannik, said: “Nobody hears these stories … it happens every weekend, every week we’re dealing with these matters that nobody hears about.”

During the week an Adelaide court heard allegations that a man scalded his two-year-old nephew by submerging the child’s head in a sink filled with hot water.

Early this month the sickening details of a 12-year-old girl prescribed the contraceptive pill by a doctor after being told the child was “sexually active” by her mother, who was herself secretly abusing the girl along with her partner, were reported on.

These cases are nothing short of despicable and in my opinion those doing the mistreating and abusing ought to be dealt the most severe of sentences.

Personally, I would like to see them catapulted into outer space to forever orbit, no matter how politically incorrect this may be.

Adelaide lawyer Andrew Carpenter is lobbying for urgent changes to correct a legal loophole that protects pedophiles from having to pay compensation to their victims, saying “scary statistics” show one in three girls and one in five boys will suffer some sort of sexual abuse by the time they are 18 – robbing kids of their childhood in the most heinous of ways.

“It is all about getting justice for survivors … we are seeing offenders get off lightly and we see many people who don’t face justice at all,” the senior associate at Websters Lawyers says.

Surely, anything we can do to deter vile individuals from ruining a childhood is worth the effort?