CARE OF CHILD

Southland Times, Issue 22728, 2 November 1935, Page 6

CARE OF CHILD

UNUSUAL CASE UNLICENSED FOSTER PARENT A LITTLE KNOWN LAW (Per United Press Association.) Wellington, November 1. Edith May Simmonds, a young woman, pleaded guilty in the Magistrate’s Court to being an unlicensed foster parent in that she had the custody of a child for more than seven consecutive days. On her behalf it was stated that she did not know that keeping a child for another woman out of kindness was contravention of the Act. She was convicted and ordered to come up if called within six months. The Child Welfare Officer said the department was anxious to eradicate unlicensed homes. “The view the Court takes of it,” said the Magistrate, and the sooner it is widely known the better, is that it is in the interests of the children themselves that this particular section of the Act should be strictly enforced. Unfortunately in the history of the Dominion we have had several most serious cases in connection with infants and it is with the object of averting anything in future like baby farming that the Education Department is taking action in this case. One has only to look at the penalty provided. a fine of £5O or six months imprisonment, to see the attitude of the legislature on the matter. They view it as it is rightly viewed, as a very serious offence. In this case there does not seem to have been any attempt at baby farming; nothing more indeed than good-hearted consideration for a child and its mother, but still there is a breach of the law and it must be clearly understood that the department will not tolerate any such breach in future.”