AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Monday 29 September 2014
There has been a 30% increase in reports of child abuse in the Northern Territory in the last financial year, an inquiry has heard.
The NT Department of Children and Families (DCF) has also seen a 25% rise in the number of children in out-of-home care, and a 29% increase in investigations into child protection matters in the financial year to 30 June, said Simone Jackson, the executive director of the out of home care division at the department.
“We are all shocked and trying to work out that increase in volume,” Jackson told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse in Darwin on Monday.
“It’s sad to say we have a lot of parents who are unable to provide the minimum care requirements for their young people. Child protection is the symptom, never the issue.”
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