Simply put, the most puzzling thing about the Australian ‘Time for Action: The National Council’s Plan for Australia to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, 2009-2021′ is that the plan doesn’t address the physical, emotional or sexual abuse of children. In fact, the actual incidence of various types of child abuse, and the profiles of the individuals abusing them have been intentionally omitted from the volumes of information that justify the National Council’s plan.
Understandably, many Australian men have expressed outrage that such a high profile government study would use the possessive pronoun “their,” regarding women, as though fathers did not exist in their childrens lives. But perhaps the government’s failure to include men as caretakers of their own children can be better explained with further investigation into The Plan. Let’s take a look at some statistics and studies about child abuse and neglect in Australia as well as the conspicuous absence of some key information. This may help to guage the severity of the problem, and to determine who is responsible.
The Exclusion of Child Abuse Statistics
While the architects of The Plan often mention how a life in an abusive home is detrimental to a cbild’s well-being, they lack any actual analysis of child abuse and the perpetrators.
In 1996, two quite detailed reports discussing the problem of child abuse in Australia were published, including in-depth analysis of the data that examined the sex and relationship of the perpetrators. Both Angus G & Hall G (1996) [8] and Tomison A (1996) [9] research papers showed an alarming amount of varying types of child abuse, including physical, sexual, emotional abuse and neglect. Indeed, one of the more shocking pieces of information they supplied identified single parent mothers as the largest demographic of perpetrators of child abuse in Australia.
In 1997, the academic researchers Broadbent and Bentley published ‘Child Abuse and Neglect Australia 1995-1996′ for the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, which confirmed what Angus & Hall as well as Tomison showed the year before. The report examined the national figures of child abuse for 1995-96, which showed 29,833 cases of substantiated child abuse or neglect in Australia. The split between the victims sexes, girls(51%) and boys(49%) under the age of 15 who were abused, was split almost evenly. [10-pg19]
(Source: Broadbent and Bentley 1997)
Broadbent and Bentley went on to discuss the prevalence of the natural parent as it related to the perpetrators of the cases of child abuse.
“The data that are available indicate that the person believed responsible in 71% of substantiated notifications of abuse and neglect was the natural parent. This is not surprising given that child abuse and neglect is a child protection issue and that the natural parent is the person most likely to have care of a child. Step-parents were reported as the person responsible in 10% of substantiated notifications and a parent’s de facto partner in 7%. Parents were believed to be responsible for 66% of physical abuse substantiations, 77% of emotional abuse substantiations, 87% of neglect substantiations, but only 24% of sexual abuse substantiations.” [10-pg34]
The researchers further examined the sex and relationship of the responsible parties in which this data was readily available.
“In 1995–96, of finalised investigations in those States and Territories for which data were available (Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory), 40% involved children living in single female parent families and 31% living in ‘two parent—natural’ families. A further 15% of finalised investigations involved children from ‘two parent—other’ families (such as families where there is one natural parent and a de facto or a step-parent)”[10-pg35]
(Source: Broadbent and Bentley 1997)
The breakdown of this data for the sex and relationship of child abusers was:
- 40% single parent female
- 46% two-parent families (both male and female parental perpetrators)
- 6% single parent male
- 8% Other
This means that in 86% of child abuse cases were perpetrated by or with a female offender, while 52% of child abuse cases were perpetrated by or with a male offender. If past years of recorded child abuse in Australia are any indication, between 20,000 and 30,000 cases of substantiated incidents occur each year. This information did not sit well with several of the people inside the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) nor the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). In fact, in 1997 the AIHW pulled the plug on recording any further data pertained to the sex or relationship of a child abuser, unless it was sexual abuse.[11]
(Source: Broadbent and Bentley 1997)
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In 2003, another researcher for the Australian Institute of Family Studies, Fitzroy 2003 ‘The violence of women: Making sense of child abuse perpetrated by mothers’, shed some further light on the statistics which continued to show mothers as the primary perpetrator of child abuse.
“Women commit between 31-50 percent of physical assaults on children. Mothers commit almost 50 percent of the recorded infanticide and women perpetrate between 2-7 percent of sexual assaults against children. It is worth noting that often researchers identify that, for example, 69 percent of perpetrators of such and such crime are men, but then fail to discuss who perpetrated the remaining 31 percent. Within family violence research often a gender-neutral term such as ‘parent’ or ‘care giver’ is used, however there is no further discussion as to whether it was a father or mother who perpetrated the assaults. This absence may reflect a general understanding that men are the majority of perpetrators of child assaults, however it may also reflect a denial of the assault of children by their mothers.”[11-pg2]
While Fitzroy criticizes the AIHW and ABS decision to not keep the data concerning the sex and relationship of child abusers, she gives a brief reasoning why she understands that many feel that women’s violence can be explained away.
“This paper positions women’s use of violence within a social context that includes historical, structural and institutional violence characterised by patterns of domination and oppression. This social context includes patriarchal, racist and classist ideologies whereby some people are defined as superior to ‘others’…..I would argue therefore that an analysis of women’s violence should be positioned within an analysis of the human capacity for violence. We can all desire retribution for perceived harms, experience rage and the wish to inflict pain on another.”[11-pg3]
The National Director of the Joint Parenting Association, Yuri Joakimidis, not only admonishes the Australian government for its refusal to keep these records, he claims that bias within the AIHW, to further a particular ideology, were compromising the integrity of all of its data collection.
“In this context, the decision taken in 1997 by the AIHW (Broadbent & Bentley 1997) to no longer publish data indicating the sex of perpetrators in substantiated child abuse cases must be reversed. The action was taken just one year after the data was first published in 1996 (968 men and 1138 women). The omission was justified on the wobbly basis that only one state (WA) and two territories (ACT & NT) had furnished statistics and a lack of publishing space. Interested parties were advised that they could obtain the data under a Freedom Of Information request at a cost of $200.
Curiously, these reasons did not preclude the publication of these data in 1996. In fact, Angus & Hall (1996) observed that “the information base provide an extra dimension to data previously presented.” Quite obviously, the non publication of these important statistics can negatively impact on child abuse policy and the allocation of resources. If the AIHW decision does indeed represent bias reporting then such slanted views clearly have no place in scientific endevours.” [11]
Indeed, looking at Western Australia’s numbers for 2005-06 and 2007-08 alone, they continue to show the same pattern of perpetrators of child abuse being overwhelmingly single females.
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For State government, or key members within, to intentionally cover up the sex and relationship of child abusers in reporting important child welfare statistics, simply because 40% of child abuse cases are perpetrated by single mothers, it may well constitute a criminal conspiracy. Particularly if children are harmed as a result. Since Parliament allocates monies to combat child abuse, decisions to stop keeping these crucial statistics must be seen as at least passively endangering the welfare of Australian children.
It is also important to note the hypocrisy of calling this major report on domestic violence ‘Time for Action: The National Council’s Plan for Australia to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children’ when critical information concerning child abuse and neglect in Australia is concealed. Furthermore, there are compelling reasons to believe that the National Council left out key facts regarding women’s violence to satisfy an ideological and financial agenda that hinges on a false paradigm in which only men are violent in the home.
This kind of conduct has been previously identified and addressed in a paper by the internationally recognized expert researcher on Domestic Violence, Dr. Murray Straus. In his paper, Processes Explaining the Concealment and Distortion of Evidence on Gender Symmetry in Partner Violence, he catalogs methods used to conceal and distort evidence on symmetry in partner violence, which has become a widespread corruption issue in western academe. As Straus writes:
Method 1. Suppress Evidence - Researchers who have an ideological commitment to the idea that men are almost always the sole perpetrator often conceal evidence that contradicts this belief. Among researchers not committed to that ideology, many (including me and some of my colleagues) have withheld results showing gende r symmetry to avoid becoming victims of vitriolic denunciations and ostracism. Thus, many researchers have published only the data on male perpetrators or female victims, deliberatcly omitting data on female perpetrators and male victims. This practice startcd with one of the first general population surveys on family violence. The survey done for the Kentucky Commission on the Status of Women obtained data on both men and women, but only the data on male perpetration was publishcd (Schulman 1979). Among the many other examples of respected researchers publishing only the data on assaults by men are Kennedy and Dutton (1989); Lackey and Williams (1995); Johnson and Leone (2005); and Kaufman Kantor and Straus (1987).[24]
Using this method and others, The National Council attempts to paint men as the monsters of domestic violence, who are responsible for almost all of Australia’s problems inside the home. The fact that women, not men, are responsible for the majority of actual child abuse has been intentionally removed from the parameters of their studies. Violence, a human problem, is one which both men and women perpetrate; we are all responsible for putting an end to it, not just in the home, but in society at large. For this council to deny the violence, neglect and other abuses that women commit codemns Australian children to lives of invisible pain, for which no help will be allowed, by edict of the government.
It is not only a disgrace to professional and academic integrity, it’s a slap in the face to those forgotten children of Australia who live the brutal reality of violence and abuse, day in and day out. It is time the men and women of Australia let their voices be heard, and instruct their government that this is not an acceptable situation. And it is time that the members of the National Council Advisory Board be held accountable to the public they purport to serve. The women, the men and the children of Australia deserve better than this. They deserve the truth
References
(1)The Plan http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/women/pubs/violence/np_time_for_action/national_plan/Pages/default.aspx
(2) http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/women/pubs/violence/np_time_for_action/national_plan/Pages/outcome_4.aspx
(3) http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/bn/sp/DVAustralia.htm#_Toc309798397
(4) http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/women/progserv/violence/nationalplan/Documents/national_plan.pdf
(5) http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/housing/progserv/homelessness/whitepaper/Pages/default.aspx
(6) The Road Home http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/housing/progserv/homelessness/whitepaper/Pages/default.aspx
(7) Australian Bureau of Statistics
(8) Angus G & Hall G (1996). Child Abuse and Neglect Australia 1994-1995. Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Series; no 16)
(9) Tomison A (1996). “Protecting Children: Updating The National Picture” in Child Abuse and Neglect Australia 1994-1995, Child Welfare Series No.16, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, AGPS, Canberra
(10) Broadbent A & Bentley R (1997). Child Abuse and Neglect Australia 1995-1996. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Catalogue No CWS 1. Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (Child Welfare Series No 17)
(11) http://deltabravo.net/forum/index.php?topic=229.0;wap2
(12) Fitzroy 2003 – ‘The violence of women: Making sense of child abuse perpetrated by mothers’ Australian Institute of Family Studies
(14) http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter9.shtml
(15) Headey, B., Scott, D., & de Vaus, D. (1999). Domestic violence in Australia: Are Women and Men Equally Violent? Australian Social Monitor 2:57-62
(16) Dutton D. G. (2007). Female Intimate Partner Violence and Developmental Trajectories of Abusive Families. International Journal of Men’s Health, 6, 54-71
(17) Archer J (2000). Sex Differences in Physically Aggressive Acts between Heterosexual Partners: A Meta-Analytic Review. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 651-680
(18) http://www.deewr.gov.au/HigherEducation/Publications/HEStatistics/Publications/Pages/Students.aspx
(19) http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/PrimaryMainFeatures/3309.0?OpenDocument
(20) http://www.prb.org/DataFinder/Topic/Rankings.aspx?ind=6
(21) http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rb/2004-05/05rb07.htm#statistical
(22) http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.aspx
(24) http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V74-gender-symmetry-with-gramham-Kevan-Method%208-.pdf
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