Legislation ‘no protection’ for children

Press, 24 May 1977, Page 3

Legislation ‘no protection’ for children

PA Hamilton Legislation covering the rights of children gives them no protection in law, and is “nothing more than a hopeless piece of window dressing,” according to a Christchurch City Councillor (Mrs Nancy Sutherland). , “The Children and Young Persons Act, 1974, is hopeless,” Mrs Sutherland said at a Federation of Parents Centres conference at Cambridge. “It is a typical piece of Government window dressing. In effect, children have no rights in Court. “Every clause in that act has a loophole — an escape clause that gives the police and the courts an out. The interests of children must be paramount, but at present, in courts, parents are the ones who seem to have all the rights.” Mrs Sutherland has devoted her life to social welfare issues, and was elected to the Christchurch City Council in 1971. She is the chairman of the council’s newly constituted social welfare standing committee. She became the chairman of the council’s steering committee on children’s rights last year, and has also investigated the Magistrate’s Court and the Children and Young Persons Court at Christchurch, and published reports on each. Because of what she termed a “scandalous situation,” Mrs Sutherland is now fighting for the introduction of a bill of rights for children. She also wants to see the introduction of a children’s advocate in court situations. “How on earth can a small child know what his rights are? Often they are too young to be able to understand what is going on. They have the right to an advocate to explain and act on their behalf,” she said. “Even if a child is aware of his rights, what child has the money to pay for a lawyer?”

The advocate should be provided at Government expense — which, she said, would probably be cheaper in the long term. “At present a child can be incarcerated at the taxpayers’ expense, for as long as six weeks on remand, often in a jail. Apart from the damage done to the child, it is costing the country a fortune.” Even a violent alcoholic father had more rights than any innocent child, Mrs Sutherland said. “In a separation situation, that father will be granted his full rights to the child. At any time he can haul that child off its mother’s knee. He might be drunk and beat them all up, but in court his rights are honoured.” Mrs Sutherland attributed the increasing number of child bashings, marriage breakdowns, delinquency and truancy problems on the inadequacies of New Zealand society. “The majority of those kids in court are not bad. They are the casualties of the system,” she said.