Survivors of abuse express outrage as long-awaited legislation falls far below recommendations of independent inquiry
Archived version: https://archive.ph/FK3Os
The ones most likely to see evidence of abuse. Of course. Makes perfect sense.
Duty to report laws aren’t what you think, and they’re not always good. Everyone CAN report. Duty to report makes it illegal for them not to.
Let’s say a kid shows up to school with a bruise, the teacher asks how did you get that. The kid trusts the teacher and answers “my parents hurt me when I don’t behave”. If the teacher is mandated to report an inquiry is started immediately, but since it’s only one bruise and kids get hurt all the time, the parents get away with it. Now the kid gets abused even more for telling the teacher, and the kid realises that telling the teacher the truth will only make more problems. Next time it happens he tells the teacher “I fell”
If the teacher is able to exercise discretion, they can accumulate evidence until the odds of success are worth breaking the kids trust for their own interest.
Now doctors and nurses are less likely to have a long term relationship with children and having a duty to report means they don’t have to listen to excuses and can just shrug and say “I’m sorry, I’m mandated to report these types of injuries” so they can actually be helped by these laws.
Child abuse is a very delicate situation and easy answers are few and far between.
Anyone else feel like the country needs to be specified on posts…
I completely agree. Lemmy is a global community after all.
100% yes!
Anyone knows where the reporting line is drawn? Like could they still report by proxy, like a doctor nudging someone towards discovering & reporting the abuse?
This doesn’t stop doctors, nurses and teachers from reporting abuse, it just exempts them from the law that compels them to report abuse.
They can still report it, they just don’t have to.
In other words, the people it should most apply to. What a joke.
Ah yes, the doctors and nurses, which ends up with the parents not taking their abused child to a doctor anymore, cause they absolutely have to report it. Same reason why doctors don’t report drug usage to the police - they want to save your ass, not put you in jail.
You have no idea what you’re talking about. Teachers are the most likely people to recognize abuse in a child.
Except for the very obvious issue here - it is a duty to report. So any small bruise, any indication (i e. A kid saying “mom beats me”) needs to go immediately to protective services. Which then ends up with the kid simply lying for attention after you put the entire family through hell.
They still can report. The thing here is “they aren’t forced to report every single possible instance no matter how small or fake”
No, teachers are not required to report any small bruise. Saying something like “mom beats me”, yes, they would/should be required to report.
Then what is the point?
That is a bonkers stipulation put in a law
Here’s a reminder that clergy has never been legally required to report child abuse.
Just throwing that out there.
It’d collide with their 5th Amendment rights, in the US, anyways. Not /s, f the church.
