March 21, 2016
Sixty-one. (click here) It's the number of children who have died as a result of non-accidental injuries in New Zealand in the last 10 years.
Their names are scars on a shameful landscape of child abuse - Chris and Cru Kahui who would have turned 10 today, Nia Glassie, JJ Ruhe-Lawrence, Jyniah Te Awa.
Thirty-one of those young ones were violently assaulted. They were kicked, punched, thrown, stomped or bashed to the point of death.
New Zealand has the fifth worst child abuse record out of 31 OECD countries and on average a child is killed here every five weeks.
In the last half of 2015, Child Youth and Family had recorded 8800 cases of proven child abuse and neglect.
In the same period, the agency received 76,041 "reports of concern" about suspected child abuse or neglect which included 34,226 referrals from police....
