Yes, this week is apparently “National Child Protection Week”.

The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics reports, for the year April 2009 to March 2010, almost exactly the same number of assaults against children as the previous year — just over 20,000.

Perhaps there were more. Not all cases are reported. A survey by the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse found only 34 percent of Australians saying they’d call police if a child disclosed sexual abuse.

Many said they wouldn’t report it because they feared that they may be wrong — or said it wasn’t their business.

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NSW Community Services Minister, Linda Burney, says children’s wellbeing is everybody’s business:

“It’s not an issue where you can just walk away saying, ‘I don’t want to be involved.’

“We’re talking about children that are being hurt.

“What we require . . . is a real cultural shift about taking responsibility for all children.”

That’s what she says . . . .

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Responsibility?

All children?

Are we not being a bit hypocritical on this?

What about unborn children? Are we “taking responsibility” when we abort them?

And the proposed Parental Leave system, under which children aged 18 weeks — when mummy’s Parental Leave ends – will be dumped in childcare institutions from daybreak to dusk? Is that “taking responsibility”?

And when split parents use children as political footballs in custody disputes – playing games over access/non-access to spite each other? Is that “taking responsibility”?

Wait, there’s more . . . .

Giving babies to homosexual couples.

Putting children in schools that won’t teach them about God.

Dressing little girls in provocative “sexualising” clothes, looking as though the parents want them molested.

Child-abuse in so many disguises . . . .

* * *

The underlying notion that children are something to which we have a right . . . .

And that their role is to be cute when wanted — and to be absent when not wanted . . . .

All this makes child-harmful behaviour seem normal, simply because it’s what everybody does.

We forget that a child is a gift from God.

All children are, first and foremost, God’s children.

We have the stewardship of them as a God-given privilege.