Ant63: It's one thing reporting abuse, it's another getting a court to do anything about it.
The way it goes here is that suspicion of abuse is reported to a government ministry called Child and Family Services who assign a social worker to investigate. If these suspicions are founded then the child is taken away and put in foster care. The social worker has a lot of influence. If the courts are involved it's typically one of two ways, the parents challenge the right of the social worker to take the child. Or, the child is severely injured or killed and then it's part of the criminal justice system. By that time it's a matter of doing too little, too late. I can't think of one instance in this latter situation where someone, somewhere didn't know things were bad in the home. And then the finger pointing begins. I'll stray off-topic here for a moment and talk about a trial currently involving a family from Afghanistan where the father, mother and oldest son are on trial for first degree murder of three teen girls and the father's first wife - an honour killing, is what the papers call it. The school knew there was abuse in the home and dutifully reported it to Child and Family Services. The idiot social worker interviewed the girls in front of the father and mother and of course the girls recanted because they were terrified. A few weeks later they were dead.
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