From mopping up the damage to preventing the flood: the role of social policy in preventing violence against children.

• Author: Durrant, Joan E.

Abstract

Sweden is a country where children's rights and developmental needs occupy the top level of the political agenda. There, child poverty is unacceptable, violence against children is not tolerated, a single child's death is too many--and extensive family support is woven into the fabric of the society. Where other nations have taken a punitive or neglectful approach to families facing challenges, Sweden has taken a proactive, preventive and supportive approach. The results are impressive: child poverty, child abuse fatalities and child homelessness are virtually nonexistent. A foundation has been created for family health and, as a result, children's potential to blossom is not squandered. This paper describes Sweden's approach to family policy in order to generate ideas for changes that could be made in Canada and New Zealand in order that children can thrive in these countries, too.

INTRODUCTION

As a Canadian, I live on the other side of the earth. I live as close to the North Pole as New Zealanders live to the South Pole. When I am tobogganing, New Zealanders are surfing. I live in the land of polar bears; New Zealanders live in the land of penguins.

In many ways, our countries are opposites. But despite our dramatic geographic differences, we share many commonalities. For example, our countries share a language, a monetary system and a parliamentary government structure. And we share a history of colonisation, a tradition of violent child socialisation practices, and unacceptably high rates of child maltreatment. The dynamics underlying this violence, and the young victims themselves, are indistinguishable between our regions. And we all suffer the damage caused by this violence, wherever it occurs.

The theme of the 10th Australasian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect--The Blossoming of our Children--conveys a sense of positive growth from fragility to strength, from dependence to spiritual flight. It conveys optimism in the potential of our children to flourish and in adults to provide the nourishment that will feed their growth.

But we know that in our countries, many parents are unable to adequately nourish and nurture their children, many communities are wastelands of despair, and many children's potential is never realised. For some, this situation is assumed to be the necessary nature of things; the notion of all children flourishing is assumed to be utopian idealism. But is it? Is the violence experienced by thousands of children each year in our countries simply a reality of life? Is it impossible to effectively protect children from the physical and psychological pain they suffer through violence? Are the economic and human costs of violence against children simply acceptable to our societies?

The answer to each of these questions is, of course, "no". But how can we provide effective protection for all children? How can our countries become places of safety, rather than danger, for children? To begin my examination of this question, I will present a parable in order to illustrate the vision and philosophy of protection through prevention.

THE PARABLE OF THE FLOOD

Winnipeg, the city in which I live, was built on a flood plain. Calamitous floods have occurred throughout the city's history. The most devastating flood took place in 1950. (2) It lasted for 51 days, during which the 150-metre-wide Red River was transformed into a lake 65 kilometres wide and 100 kilometres long. In an attempt to control the resulting loss and damage, 100,000 people were evacuated; 5,000 military personnel and 150 ships, including large naval whalers and cutters were deployed; and approximately 500,000 kilograms of equipment were airlifted into the city. Despite these efforts, more than 10,000 homes were lost and the economic costs of the damage totalled $600 million.

The extent of the devastation led to a three-year federal investigation and the appointment of a Royal Commission. One of the resulting recommendations was to build a floodway that would divert water away from Winnipeg. Rather than waiting for the next flood to occur and suffering its economic and human costs, the city would be protected through a reconstruction of the landscape that would actually prevent the damage from taking place.

Following the Royal Commission's recommendations, the then-Premier of the Province, Duff Roblin, championed a plan to construct a floodway, but was vociferously opposed on the basis of the plan's short-term costs. (3) Roblin's plan was ridiculed by his opponents, who nicknamed the project "Duff's Folly" and "Duff's Ditch". They proposed less costly solutions, such as raising dikes. But Roblin had a vision of full and effective protection for the city and he proceeded with his floodway plan.

Designed to protect Winnipeg from a flood 50% greater than that experienced in 1950, the floodway required the movement of more earth than was excavated to construct the Panama or Suez canals. The original cost of the floodway was $500 million--a huge sum of money by any standard. Was the outcome worth the cost?

Between 1968 and 1999, the floodway saved Winnipeg 20 times, saving the province several billion dollars in flood damage and saving its citizens from immeasurable loss and suffering. Its greatest test came in 1997, when the "flood of the century" threatened to destroy Winnipeg. At its crest, the flow of water approached the city at a rate of 138,000 cubic feet per second. This time, however, only 30 homes within the city were lost. It was estimated that the floodway saved the city more than $700 million in that flood alone (International Joint Commission 1999). In contrast, the city of Grand Forks, which lies south of Winnipeg in the US and is unprotected by a floodway, suffered $2 billion in damage (4) when dikes burst. In that city, 8,600 homes were lost or damaged, 11 buildings were gutted by a massive downtown fire, and the city did not have drinkable water for 23 days. In Winnipeg, Duff Roblin was hailed as a hero and plans developed to expand his "ditch" to improve protection in the future (National Research Council of Canada 2005).

What did we learn from this experience? First, we learned that tragedy and suffering can be prevented. Second, we learned that the effects of forces appearing to be far beyond our control can, in fact, be altered. Third, we learned that while effective preventive measures are costly in the short term, those costs are recouped many times over in the long term. Finally, we learned that unwavering commitment to a vision of effective protection and prevention can transform that vision into reality.

FROM DAMAGED HOMES TO DAMAGED LIVES: MANAGING THE FLOOD OF VIOLENCE

Can the lessons learned from Winnipeg's experience with damage prevention in natural disasters be applied to damage prevention in children's lives? The figures representing the extent of loss and suffering due to child maltreatment are no less daunting than those representing the loss and suffering sustained in Winnipeg's 1950 flood. In Canada --in 2003 alone--more than 100,000 reports of maltreatment to child protection agencies were substantiated (Trocme et al. 2005). This figure does not include incidents that were not detected, those that were detected but not reported, or those that occurred but were unsubstantiated due to insufficient evidence.

The human costs of child physical, sexual and psychological maltreatment are well documented. They include physical costs, such as damage to the child's central nervous system, bone fractures, welts, cuts, genital damage, untreated medical conditions and, in some cases, death. They also include devastating psychological costs, such as destruction of self-worth, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, aggression, sexual disorders, delinquency, criminal behaviour and suicide. And there are intellectual costs, such as impairments in language and perceptual-motor functioning, lowered general intellectual functioning, and lowered academic achievement.

The economic costs of child maltreatment are no less staggering. A recent study published by the Law Commission of Canada (Bowlus et al. 2003) estimated that child maltreatment costs the country more than $15 billion annually. These costs are borne by the individual and the family, as well as by the judicial, social services, education, health and employment systems. They include, for example, the costs of policing, legal proceedings, incarceration, family relocation, special education services, child welfare services, foster care and adoption services, lost earnings due to lower educational attainment, short-term and long-term medical treatment, drugs, counselling, treatment for substance abuse and psychological disorders, divorce, and teen pregnancy.

Therefore, in Canada, we find ourselves in a situation where we are spending more than $15 billion every year in an attempt to deal with the damage caused by violence against children. The fact that the economic costs are so high...