When are we finally going to put children first? There's a war being waged against them, and it is being manifested through psychical and emotional abuse, through neglect and through sexual exploitation.
In 1999 alone, child protective services substantiated an estimated 826,000 cases of child maltreatment, including neglect, and physical and sexual abuse, according to a US Department of Health and Human Services report.
The case of Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children, ages 6 months to 7 years, in the bathtub, is a bleak reminder that children are brutally murdered at the hands of those who are supposed to protect them. In fact, an estimated 1,100 defenseless children die each year as a result of abuse and neglect.
Historically, the protection of children has not been a top priority. Regarded primarily as chattel, the legal property of their parents, abused and neglected children were long expected to carry the burden of their abuse with little or no help from law enforcement, medical professionals or government agencies.
It wasn't until the Mary Ellen Wilson case in 1874 that abused children in the United States had any right to protection. Mary Ellen was a 9-year-old severely beaten and neglected by her foster mother. A neighbor, who frequently overheard the child's agonized screams during beatings, tried to get help from police and other organizations. She was unsuccessful - told that she needed proof of the beatings and had no legal rights over the child,
In a desperate attempt to save Mary Ellen, the neighbor turned to the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NYSPCA), where she discovered that laws at the time made it possible to rescue abused animals more easily than abused children.
The founder and president of NYSPCA, Henry Bergh, argued: "The child is an animal. If there is no justice for it as a human being, it shall at least have the rights of the stray cur in the street. It shall not be abused." Bergh and his attorney had the child removed from the home, and the foster mother was convicted of assault and battery and sentenced to a year at hard labor in the city penitentiary.
This landmark case sparked formation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (SPCA) and other organized efforts to combat child maltreatment that eventually led to an amendment to the Social Security Act to mandate child welfare and protective services.
Although intervention became mandated, social workers alone were charged with the detection of child abuse. And at the time, except for caring medically for abused children, physicians, including pediatricians, would not become involved in the plight of such victims.
The pediatricians healed the sick but did not deal with social, psychological, cultural, religious or economic afflictions. They shunned politics and scrupulously avoided any controversial police activity that might conflict with the Hippocratic principle of confidentiality. At the time, child abuse was considered a social problem and not necessarily a strict medical problem, so abuse went unreported and children continued to suffer.
But, over time, physicians did become involved in combating child abuse. By 1968, all 50 states had passed laws mandating that physicians and other health-care workers report child abuse and neglect.
After the Mary Ellen Wilson case, it took nearly 100 years to put the safety of our children ahead of preconceived legal complexities and ahead of personal and professional fears of being blamed when child protective services and law enforcement care called in to investigate child abuse.
In this century, we have the Catholic Church being resistant to the reporting of child abuse. It claims that such reporting might compromise the sacramental seal of confession. Just as physicians were previously resistant to putting children's safety first, the Catholic Church is doing the same. And Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon is in the church's corner.
In a recent letter to state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Brunswick), Dillon strongly disagreed with legislation already passed in the Senate that would require the clergy to become mandated reporters of abuse. Dillon went so far as to "urge reconsideration" of the matter.
In an outrageous attempt to cloud the issue and minimize sex crimes committed against adolescent boys, Dillon's letter went on to make a distinction between offenders who carry out sex crimes against prepubescent vs. postpubescent boys. Using archaic and extremely destructive stereotypes, Dillon suggested that abuse of adolescent boys by priests "makes it likely that the problem is homosexuality in the priesthood." A child molester is a child molester. Regardless of the age of his victims, he must be regarded as such.
Meanwhile, Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota is using his position to ask a grand jury to investigate "whether the Diocese of Rockville Centre has covered up repeated cases of sexual abuse and reassigned accused priests to other parishes." Spota's actions will set a national precedent by placing the value of a child well above the word of a religious institution that has demonstrated it is not capable of policing its own clergy.
By now, most would agree that mandated reporting for the clergy is an absolute requirement. Helath-care workers and teachers and many others are required to report suspicions of child abuse. The Catholic Church and any other clergy cannot be exempt because that leaves children too vulnerable and puts the church above the law.
Mandated reporting alone for clergy doesn't go far enough. If we really want to put children first, we will require any people in pastoral roles in any places of worship to be licensed by the state so they can be carefully monitored in their roles with children -- as other professionals are.
We must put the value of our children first and demand licensing and mandated reporting for those providing counseling services for children.