She's gone.

[Zuki Bandit]

These sick f..kers need to be made an example of. Child abuse in this country hits the headlines with a bang and then quickly gets swept under the carpet.
I may sound like a redneck on a witch hunt, but I think the only way to make those cowardly arseholes who get off on harming the little ones, is to expose them for who they are and what they have done and let karma takes it's natural course.

They will get what they deserve, in some way, shape or form!

[Ocean1]

The risk factors are already widely known - single parenthood, low maternal education, low maternal age at birth, poor housing, large family size, and parental drug or alcohol abuse.

The correlation between the risk factors you quote and poor social performance of all sorts has been at the root of social and health funding policy for about two decades. My wife is a health pro, it’s a “discussion” we used often to have. She’d roll out reams of data demonstrating obvious links between (say) low income and (EG) poor health to prove that the one causes the other. I won’t roll out the age old beater about statistics, it’s puerile. My argument was and still is that while the links between these “risk factors” and child/wife abuse, poor health, criminal behaviour and a bunch of other general shit is accepted, obvious, it in no way means that one is causal and the others symptomatic.

Let’s apply Occam’s razor, of the explanations that effectively describe the observed effect the one that postulates the least number of entities (factors) is almost always correct. Over such a large statistical sample, where most show multiple “risk factors” it’s extremely likely that there’s one over-riding cause. If you accept that ALL of the data is the effect of a single cause outside the scope of the set it makes way more sense.

The single cause?
Lack of self discipline.
It can be (and I’d suggest almost always is) the root cause of all of the “risk factors” listed in currently fashionable social literature AND the “outcomes” supposedly cause by them.

If, as an adult you can’t be fucked maintaining a healthy lifestyle, having a job, cooking well balanced meals, managing a safe household, supporting your family etc etc then you’re likely to feel that society doesn’t appreciate you, doesn’t value you. You’re dead right, most of it doesn’t. However, while you and those who you DO feel some sympathy from are reacting to that feeling of rejection by behaving in socially damaging ways and beating the crap out of whoever’s handy the current purveyors of social policy are trying to smooth your ruffled feathers. It’s OK, not your fault, your parents were poor/ill/young/uneducated, we should have taught you better, given you more attention, love. The ugly fact is that once you find yourself faced with individuals who behave like this (for whatever reason) you simply can’t “re-educate” them. Other threads discuss what to do about them.

The children?
Any idea how difficult it is to adopt a child nowadays?
There are far more families who would adopt babies under the right conditions than there are babies available. The conditions, however, exclusively favour the birth mother, not those who want to raise the child as their own. The same policy keeps many kids exposed to exactly the teachings that resulted in the failure of their parents.

Older children and adolescents of such families I don’t know how to deal with. It takes personal resources I know I for one don’t have. There’s a few who’ve posted here already who have what it takes, how to teach self discipline. Why don’t we ask them and those like them what’s needed, and then give it to them?

Maybe then our future children will be safe.

"Goodness alone is never enough. A hard cold wisdom is required, too, for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom invariably accomplishes evil." Heinlein.

[Mystery]

RIP Nia, you looked like a little angel and I really hope there is a better place for you to go to because if anyone deserved to feel peace, happiness and love, it is you.

As a Mother, I find this so hard to even begin to understand. I blame the Mother, she left that poor baby with a bunch of bored teenagers who had nothing better to do than torture a poor innocent child. I also blame the Mother's of the mongrels who did this. How can you not teach your children right from wrong, how can you not instill some sense of humanity and compassion.

I know a couple of men who were raised in abusive families, where both the Mother and the kids were beaten. Both were eventually raised by their Mothers only, who struggled to put food on the table. They are two of the best Fathers I know, they do not tolerate violence of any kind to their kids or their wives. So it is not a cycle that cant be broken. It is actually a choice they make.

To all the couples who would make loving and caring Parents, who struggle with infertility problems and undergo IVF and suffer the heartache and disappointment of knowing that they probably will never have the children they would love. I am so sorry, the world is definitely not a fair place.

To the bastards that did these dreadful things which killed this little girl, I hope you rot in hell! I cannot think of a punishment fitting enough for this crime or any violence inflicted on children. It truly makes me sick!

[pete376403]

Tragic for Nia. Anyone recall what the outcome of the Kahui twins case was, or has that fallen off the radar?

[spudchucka]

They will get what they deserve, in some way, shape or form!

Mmmmm, karma, lets hope there's a big dose heading their way.

[spudchucka]

Tragic for Nia. Anyone recall what the outcome of the Kahui twins case was, or has that fallen off the radar?

Its still before the courts, hence why it isn't getting much discussion in the media.

[spudchucka]

we have called cyfs so many times, and the cops. none of them want to listen.

Unless the kid is in immediate and extreme danger all the cops can do in those circumstances is make a care & protection referral to CYF. The average street cop probably wouldn't have any real experience in doing that so they would have to send a report to their local Youth Aid Section to get anything happening. If you really aren't getting any joy you could try contacting the person in charge of Youth Aid as a starting point.

[riffer]

This is one concern for me too, after a number of people and groups have said we need to look out more for our neighbour's kids.

It's all very well saying we should be nosy neighbours and speak up, but to whom should we speak, and where is the support?

We have some flats out the back of our house - there's tenants who come and go, either white or brown trash, and some are good to their kids, and some aren't. Usually the ones who have the parties aren't good to their kids.

There's no-one we know of whom we can talk to if we have concerns, and I am sure if we did we'd find that things would start going missing from our property or things would get damaged around here. It's happened before with tenants from this property. Having said that, the latest lot seem all right.

[candor]

I tend to agree with some here who've said that sex offenders even paedophiles can sometimes have redeeming features.

My partner and I had a sixteen year old (pretty dull witted) kid stay with us after the whanau ran him off his marae for fiddling with young or nearly teen cousins.

This was not an evil or even mean nasty person. Simply someone continuing a family culture in which incest was normal - who really thought it was Ok - and was some what surprised to be run out of town. Quite sweet tho goofy hapless not socially skilled boy actually.

There is a big difference btw simply being a victim repeating cycles thru emotional ignorance and being a type who partakes in sadistic torture like the Nia killers! The second category are ferals / psychopaths.

Sex offender with blurred boundaries and a poor sense of normal - sometimes redeemable. Child basher / torturer who gets their kicks out of it NOT. You're looking often at genetic loading to psychopathy there.

I don't think anyone needs to worry about the Curtis scum getting their beans. Seems they've "paid it forward". Curtis senior was regularly bashed and hospitalised by gangs as a young man.

Young curtis was tossed around obviously unloved - thats how he met Nias mum and saw her as a food ticket being in "survival mode". I'd bet he received similar "punishments" to Nia but just happened to "make it" thru.

The young girl Oriwa Kemp who was involved was preggers at fourteen and seems to have had the sense regularly knocked out of her head as a girl (according to a teacher who said she wandered streets looking dazed as a kid and came to school unfed and unchanged) before proceeding to date one of the co-killers.

Who also locked her out the house overnight on cold nights while Nia was also getting crap treatment, even tho Oriwa was a young mum.

Nias mum was an alcy it appears which meant she worked hard then didnt come home as partying hard. Meanwhile Oriwa (very young mum in abusive relationship) was expected to babysit plus look after her own kid plus Nia.

An emotionally bonded mum would seek to spend time with kids not to escape the domestic hell by going out drinking. Work to drink describes the mum.

Nias mums mum had a kid every ten mths - where is the room for a close personal bond and development of any sense of individual identity there? She said she thought she did alright by bringing everyone up "to do their chores" and apparently lived by the cleanliness is godliness creed ie surface appearances.

Someone suggested putting these types back in the loony bins. A few years ago they would have gone there automatically as anything slightly "off" was immediately shipped off to the bin.

The one kid I know killed this way, the Edmonds girl - her mum was a known unwell schizo with drug problems.

This nine yr old died because of cyps INSISTING on placing the kid with her mum. Very simple - PC crap - keep them in the birth whanau, in the culture and especially with the mum.

When i began my nurse training the mum would have been permanently institutionalised. The murder therefore could not have happened.

What broke down here it seems is that Nias mum did not get the opportunity for residential alcohol treatment (to interrupt / detach and see the cycle) at a place like Hamner Springs, I'd wager.

Had she done that, if she is not nuts (she held a senior job so prolly wasn't too silly) the likelihood is that she'd have better protected and coped with her kids and life.

This is all based on media reports mind especially this one - and note Nias "mum" today said everyhing in the media so far has been wrong. Wrong? Or has she been living in a bit of a fantasy / denial like many abuse cycle women?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4153173a6619.html Warning - long family history

[spudchucka]

I was sent an email the other day and these bastards got of murder and and got manslaughter fu-ken beats me and then where only given eight years and will be out in 4. These pictures are desterbing they are x rate

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4154078a10.html

Interesting that the judge ordered the pictures to be released to the media.

[Hitcher]

Like others here, I have started being spammed by people passing on the online petition seeking stronger penalties for child abusers.

I have not signed this.

If I thought for a moment that deterent penalties would make any difference to New Zealand's child abuse epidemic, I would sign it in a heartbeat.

Baying for blood, freezing cold cells, bread-and-water rations, scalding hot pokers stuffed up offenders' bottoms, compulsory castration and signing petitions will not, in my view, make one jot of difference. I suspect that people who feel compelled to inflict physical and mental cruelty on others too small/weak/subjugated to fight back do not think of the consequences of being caught when they do. These people do not make rational decisions and therefore are incapable of being swayed by elegant or persuasive argument. They have no concept of "consequences" anyway, so more severe consequences will trouble them not.

If stiffer prison sentences make the morally outraged amongst us feel better, I guess that is one positive. But if people are really serious about looking after the lives, liberty and happiness of other people's children, then there are other forms of intervention they should be considering that may stem this growing tide. Regretably such measures are not as simple as a few strokes of a lawmaker's pen.

[007XX]

If stiffer prison sentences make the morally outraged amongst us feel better, I guess that is one positive. But if people are really serious about looking after the lives, liberty and happiness of other people's children, then there are other forms of intervention they should be considering that may stem this growing tide. Regretably such measures are not as simple as a few strokes of a lawmaker's pen.

Then, (one would ask very respectfully) what in your point of view, would be a way to make things better?

[Hitcher]

Then, (one would ask very respectfully) what in your point of view, would be a way to make things better?

There are no easy answers to this. And domestic violence doesn't appear to be the exclusive preserve of a socially deprived/neglected "under class", although some of the more recent extreme cases suggest that such folk are more at risk of doing this kind of thing than others.

Lower socio-economic groups are where many of the "ills" and illnesses in our society are concentrated. Maori are over-represented in these groups. Lower socio-economic groups are under-educated and often isolated/disconnect from families and family support measures that others in society rely on, can afford or take for granted. They don't read newspapers, listen to the news or surf the Internet, so are also isolated from the world around them.

If people are interested in causes, rather than symptoms, this is where they should be directing their focus.

Why was Nia abused to a point where she died from horrendous injuries?
How could such violence happen?
Where were her caregivers?

This violence allegedly happened over a prolonged period, rather than being just one incident.

How could such behaviour be condoned by caregivers and neighbours?
Is Nia the only child in her family to endure such treatment?

Change the name of the child and ask the same questions for any of the other recent cases.

Will inflicting painful revenge on the offenders make any difference? No.

Would early intervention by community groups or the Police a year ago have made a difference? Possibly.

Should we all be doing more to help those whose circumstances are not as priviledged as ours? Yes, but we don't want to face up to it. It's easier to donate $1 a week to World Vision and adopt an African orphan than it is to worry about what a bunch of hoodie losers are up to in Fordlands or Aranui.

[Ocean1]

H, if you believe those lower socio-economic groups are less well supported than the more affluent amongst us then your privileged access to a daily newspaper has left you no less isolate from the real world than them.

[Hitcher]

H, if you believe those lower socio-economic groups are less well supported than the more affluent amongst us then your privileged access to a daily newspaper has left you no less isolate from the real world than them.

"Support" should involve more than throwing money at people via the Department of Sexual Warfare. On that basis African orphans are definitely better off.