Thursday 15th February, 2007

Tragic picture revealed in latest Unicef report.

Glyn Carpenter, spokesperson for Vision Network of New Zealand, said that all decent minded people in NZ should be outraged by the picture of child neglect and abuse painted in the latest Unicef report. But, he said, we should also be concerned at statements by political leaders that the anti-smacking bill will go a long way to fix the problem. Quite simply - it will not.

The three main problems are economic pressures with two parents needing to work to provide the necessities of life, wrong values such as selfishness, individualism, and consumerism, and a growing lack of good role models. Unless we recognise the eroding spiritual foundation in our nation, we will probably see such reports continue.

It is worth noting that of the 5 nations in Europe that have the lowest rates of child abuse, 4 permit smacking, This would indicate to most people that the real problem lies somewhere else..

ENDS

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