16

Great Expectations

KIDS IN POVERTY, wherever they are, are exposed to a similar risk of harm, neglect, abuse and exploitation; child prostitutes on the streets of Athens, drug addicted street kids in South America, the institutional sexual abuse of orphans or baby refugees washing up on the beaches of Europe. Being poor increases the risks that vulnerable children face, regardless of whether they are born in the Third World or a developed economy, and the trauma they experience can significantly alter the direction of their life. Yes, it’s certainly true to say that a western child has less chance of dying of hunger, dysentery or malaria than a child in Rwanda, but that is little consolation when you are being verbally abused, beaten or sexually assaulted in an alcoholic home. Unfortunately, we have yet to make the visceral connection between poverty and child abuse that would bring so many of the social problems in our society into sharper focus. We’ve yet to see the issue framed in such a way as to focus our minds away from the areas of disagreement and onto the central issue at hand: social deprivation is what drives child abuse.

And a big part of the reason why this cultural penny hasn’t quite dropped is because of the way we currently think about and discuss the issue. We’ve all seen the standard image used by news and media outlets to signify child abuse. It’s the child, usually between five and ten, sitting on some stairs in what appears to be the family home, their face often obscured by a visual effect or their hands. This image may be part of an advert for a charity or, increasingly, an item on the news accompanied by a presenter speaking in that ‘now we’re talking about child abuse’ register. Great care is taken to present the issue of child abuse in a manner that does not upset us as an audience. In fact, sometimes we are even warned to prepare ourselves for ‘distressing’ images in advance of them being broadcast. Most people, when faced with such a serious and sensitive topic such as child abuse or neglect, will experience a natural level of empathy for the victims and a corresponding anger and disgust for the parents or guardians of the victims.

In our hearts, we feel genuine sympathy for these kids, who didn’t have much of a chance. Something must be done, we tell ourselves, before moving on to the next news item. The next news item might be about young people being unruly, engaging in various forms of criminality or nuisance behaviour. Or perhaps about the blight of violence and rise of addiction in our communities. We think to ourselves ‘What is it with young people these days?’ or ‘What the hell’s going on with their parents?’ And there’s a simple reason for that: these sanitised images, used to portray child abuse and neglect without upsetting us, distort the true nature of the problem. These pictures create a false impression that the victims are perpetual children, frozen in time, just waiting for us to reach into the photograph and remove them from harm. As children, they receive unlimited sympathy and compassion.

But the second these kids are legally culpable, our entire posture towards them changes. When the truth, whether we want to accept it or not, is that the neglected and abused kids, the unruly young people, the homeless, the alkies, the junkies and the lousy, irresponsible, violent parents are often the same person at different stages of their lives.

It’s almost a cliché to point out the correlation between poverty and nearly every other social problem you care to mention. Not just economic hardship, but poverty of the sort that fertilises cultures of abuse. This problem transcends the left–right political paradigm and will eventually overwhelm any society that refuses to deal with it. And while it’s important that we retain perspective and objectivity when trying to find solutions to these deep-seated social problems, it’s also important we don’t get so distant from the reality of human suffering that these issues become dinner party anecdotes, PowerPoint presentations or political footballs. This is not to say that the lives of all kids living in poverty are predetermined or that they lack agency when they become adults. Nor is it to absolve people of responsibility for their actions. It’s simply to say that it is impractical to kick this can any further down the political road, and that we must take our fingers out of our ears and start listening to each other. Because when these family problems do flare up, they are rarely self-contained within a household or a community.

Instead, they spill out into our society and multiply at a massive cost to all of us.

They spill into overcrowded casualty and high dependency hospital wards. They spill into six-month-long waiting lists to access clinical psychologists and psychiatric counselling facilities. They spill into overrun social work departments and inundated supported accommodation projects barely keeping their heads above water. They spill into stressful housing offices, packed-to-capacity crisis centres and outmoded addictions services. And for some they spill into police stations, sheriff courts, children’s homes, secure units, young offender institutions and prisons.

A vulnerable family living in constant economic uncertainty, job insecurity or subject to an inhumane sanctions regime often lacks the capacity to absorb, process and practically address life’s unpredictable adversities. So much of the system is presided over by people who only understand poverty in the simplest of terms, and therefore it also reflects everything they misunderstand too. Take the UK welfare system at present, where it appears that humiliation is being used to incentivise people into finding a job. Such an approach could only be dreamt up by people who have no idea of what being born poor is really like. What it does to your mind, body and spirit. Poverty is not only about a lack of employment, but about having no margin for error while living in constant stress and unpredictability. And for children growing up in this chaos, the experience can leave them emotionally disfigured, at odds with everything around them.

A stock image of a child sitting on a step, with their head in their hands, does not adequately express this complexity; it dangerously undermines it. The over-simplified way this issue, and many others, are framed and discussed creates a false impression in the public mind of what is really driving child abuse and neglect. And in turn, what is driving many of our current social problems where crime, violence, homelessness and addiction are concerned.

It all begins with a child living in social deprivation. When it comes to child abuse, poverty is the factory floor.