Any person with a balance of mind would agree that every form of child abuse should be stopped, with the offenders – be they parents, teachers or other individuals should be punished and named and shamed in public.
And any person who is well-informed would say that the number of cases involving mental, physical and sexual abuse of children is on the rise in New Zealand compared to its population and that we need tougher laws to contain such despicable behaviour.
Social Development Minister Paula Bennett was right when she said the other day that we have better rules around animal abuse than child abuse.
The need to protect children who are vulnerable cannot be over-emphasised.
There could be a law that would force abusing parents to part with their children.
But some opposition parties have slammed the proposal as populist.
Ms Bennett was not talking about sterilization, which is reportedly prevalent in some countries, but sanctions against offending parents maintaining contacts with their children.
“We should tell child abusers that we will be removing future children at birth and that they cannot work with or be in a house with children. We do it with dogs,” she said.
Apart from some parents, there are others in the society who abuse children and they must court severe and deterrent punishment.
Last week, a man who had sex with an eleven-year-old girl to make his ex-girlfriend jealous was jailed for three years.
In another case, a mother who punched her nine-year-old daughter, breaking the bones in her own hand was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison with a minimum non-parole period of five years.
It is time to enforce tougher punishment for child offenders.
