The allegations of satanic rituals involving children in Rochdale and the Orkneys, and the life sentence passed on David Hammond in November 1989 for the brutal murder of his five-year old daughter Sukina have provided the national newspapers with a lot of sensational material in the last two years.
The NSPCC estimates that between 50 and 100 children are killed by their parents each year and that a further 16,000 are abused. Child abuse cases reported to them have risen by 20 percent in the last year (Guardian, 19 March) and 7 of their 66 teams claimed to have evidence of Satanic rituals involving children (Daily Telegraph, 19 March).
The murder of children by their parents is not new. Infanticide was used to control the population and to prevent children born with defects becoming a burden on the community. In China even today baby girls are sometimes killed, where boys are preferred in families limited to one child.
In 19th century London 80 percent of illegitimate babies put out to nurse in the notorious "baby farms" died. Some died of childhood diseases associated with poverty. because their mothers could not afford to pay for their children to be looked after properly. Others were murdered for gain after the fees had been collected.
P. T. Resnick, writing in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1969, listed various reasons why parents murder their children: altruistic killing to relieve the victim’s realistic or delusional suffering, whether or not followed by suicide; acute psychosis; elimination of an unwanted child (as when paternity is in doubt or the child would be a financial burden); accidental or unconscious motivation; and spouse revenge—the so-called Medea Syndrome (after Medea in Ancient Greek mythology who, following desertion by her husband, killed their two children, saying: "Thy sons are dead and gone, that will stab thy heart").
Children are frequently warned by parents, teachers and public information films not to talk to strangers. This deliberate inculcation of a suspicious and fearful attitude to strangers is probably more harmful than helpful as at least 88 percent of child murders are carried out by members of the victim’s own family. The same mistrust of strangers is instilled into children to "protect" them from sexual abuse. But children are far more likely to be abused by relatives.
Poor get the blame
Commenting on the strong link being being abused as a child and anti-social behaviour, including child abuse, later in life, Sir Keith Joseph when Minister of Health and Social Security coined the phrase “cycles of deprivation". His argument was that parents brought up in deprived circumstances were responsible for bringing up their children in similarly deprived circumstances.
The political right-wing favours this type of “victim-bashing" approach because it avoids the pressure for social change. To blame the poor for their poverty ignores the fact that capitalism creates the wretched conditions in which many workers live. Capitalism fosters inequality and workers brought up in deprived circumstances have great difficulty in making economic progress. The worst schools, the worst social amenities and the worst job opportunities are all the very poor have access to. Children from poor families are under greater pressure to leave school as soon as possible in order that they can work and contribute to the family income. In addition, some housing estates have such bad reputations that it is difficult for workers living on them to borrow money or obtain mortgages. This has more to do with the continued deprivation from one generation to the next than any moral deficiency or lack of ability on the part of the workers.
Internal stresses within a family, personality clashes, sibling rivalry, incompatibility, worries about health, and misunderstandings between the different generations are similar for rich and poor alike. But the external stresses caused by poverty, unemployment, bad housing, overcrowding or homelessness only affect those who have to work for wages. It is these external stresses, and the fact that workers will have faced many of these problems during their own childhood that makes physical abuse more likely to happen in poor homes.
Poverty is violence
Social workers have failed to protect children because under capitalism their function is social control:
We have seen that the ruling class cannot maintain its exploitive domination simply by the direct repressive apparatus of the army, police, courts and prisons. Its legitimation has to be engineered through a range of ideological mechanisms. Social work operates primarily as part of these mechanisms.(P. Leonard, Poverty Consciousness and Action, 1975).
Capitalism distorts relationships. By putting a price on everything and subordinating all activities to the need to make a profit it has made us all rivals. It is no surprise that children have been regarded as their parents’ property, because capitalism prizes property above everything else.
Hypocritically, individual acts of cruelty are condemned by politicians while children are allowed to starve in underdeveloped countries to maintain profits. In the Phillipines children work long hours in what amounts to little more than slavery without much condemnation from European reformers, some of whom are happy to reap the profits that are made.
In the case of Sukina Hammond the Daily Star carried huge headlines “Whipped to Death" and gave lurid details of the child’s suffering. But only a handful of cases are reported in this way. The majority of children killed by their parents will not be mentioned because they are not newsworthy enough. Even in death Sukina Hammond was exploited for a headline.
Workers owe it to themselves, their children and to future generations to remove the profit motive, the property tag and all the rivalries and suspicions which are inherent in competitive societies. Perhaps then children like Sukina Hammond will not have died in vain.
Carl Pinel
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