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AFRICAN CHILDREN ARE 20 times more likely than average to be subject to care orders according to new research.
The first interim report of the Child Care Law Reporting Project described the figures as “striking”.
It pointed out that of the 333 cases examined, African children represented 11 per cent of cases, rising to 14 per cent in Dublin, despite African people representing only 0.5 per cent of the population.
As with the wider analysis of children in care, there were a variety of reasons for the proceedings in these cases including abandonment or physical abuse.
There were also cases of parents of some of the children in question suffering mental breakdowns and being hospitalised while in direct provision centres. Director of the project Dr Carol Coulter says that these cases need to be considered in light of the status of the direct provision system:
The prevalence of African families raises questions about the impact of direct provision on children’s welfare, about our integration strategy for immigrants, and the need to ensure that our child protection system is understood.
Neglect
As part of the overall study the project found that child neglect was the number one reason for care orders being sought. The report said that neglect was the primary factor in more than one in five cases.
Neglect often arises from other factors says the report such as alcohol, drug addiction or mental illness, and may be combined with other problems like domestic violence.
Coulter says that mental illness among parents is in itself a significant contributory factor in cases ofchild care orders. “The report shows that mental illness or intellectual disability on the part of a parent features in 12 per cent of cases,” she explains.
“Usually mental illness alone does not account for the parents’ problems. Sometimes this is combined with alcohol or drug abuse and often with social isolation and lack of extended family support.”
Another striking aspect of the report were details on the number of children going into care who have special needs. The report estimates this at one in five of the total number of children in care.
The 333 cases examined by the report represents about 10 per cent of the the total court-ordered child care cases.
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Aggressive parenting is an endemic problem. it is a cultural one. It was here once as well 50 years ago.
Flaking the tar out of your child over everything is not the solution to a problem.
Lets be honest they have a completly different culture and view things in a different way simple as.
Director Dr Carol Coulter better apologise before being deemed racist (for merely stating objective facts)
She’s highlighting their plight. That’s not racist, it’s demonstrating the need of the population. If she said they were in severe difficulty and rightly so because they’re not Irish anyways, that would be racist. But she didn’t, on account of her not being an ignorant bigot.
She’d want to be careful she could destroy herself by pointing things out like that.
That made absolutely no sense aisling
Well said, Aisling. That made perfect sense, Jason. A contributing factor to the number of African children being taken into care is mental breakdowns of their parents when the family is in a direct provision centre for an extended period. That shows that direct provision should be short-term only. That’s the opposite of racism.
The figures are similar in Britain. And elsewhere. And it’s no coincidence.
European and Asian family cultures are generally stronger, hence stronger societies.
And there are bigger groups of Asians in the UK and Ireland.
Instead of thumbing down if you don’t like the look of that, just look at the data.
@ Jane: have they access to hse out patients for mental health issues or is there a health unit dealing with that in the provisions centres? just curious
Kids are commodities more so in these cultures, a means to an end. An anchor to assist to remain in the state, a tool for procuring more benefits, the child was not wanted but merely deemed useful necessary in helping to achieve a goal, there was once a time when the vast majority of African migrant women arrived here heavily pregnant before the IBC loophole was shutdown, this of course is not accurate in all cases but definitely in a lot!
^^+1000 this country really needs to sort out the elephant in the room that is immigration, a OZ style immigration system is what we need also before anybody says anything I am not racist I am a realist who hates to see the PCM bridge beat us around with the r word like the Dublin South West branch of People before Profit protesting out side Tallaght Garda station calling the Garda racist, they should be across the road to the Intreo offices and be protesting about the unreal levels of unemployment in DSW/Tallaght and the failure of FG/Labour government to tackle this issue or protest outside the Dept of Education about how underfunded some schools in Tallaght area!!
We all agree tony but nothing will be done. Ireland has been taken over by foreigners
I hate people like you, you should go to Oz if you like it so much, immigration is a positive thing and we need it.I’m fairly sure we wouldn’t have nearly enough doctors without the large number of African doctors in Ireland.
Let’s not forgot most Australians are criminals
Jonathan you haven’t even meet me how can u hate me?? if you read my message properly you would understand a OZ style immigration system means anybody willing to work: Happy Days come on in enjoy the party, anybody just coming to use and abuse the system or beg no thanks!!
@Delaney – that’s his point, you fool.
It is why we should have a points-based system such as Australia AND Canada.
Doctors are skilled workers – cleaners are not.
Nobody is saying stop them because they’re black or Asian or anything else.
You are storing up huge, insurmountable problems if you allow unrestricted immigration or immigration of unskilled workers, for obvious economic and social reasons.
It’s why Asian countries such as Japan, China and India have the strictest immigration rules in the world. Wake up.
You’re delusional Jonathan. There are way to many coming in. Many Irish people are living in Oz because they couldn’t find work here.
spot on Declan
I wonder would there be a correlation between that and the ones that were conceived in Africa and born in Ireland?
It’s just like Fine Gaels Darren Scully says…..
In an overbearing obnoxious tone in his new blue shirt!!
@SinAssist
The truth, however unpalatable to you is always the truth…
Why not use the ‘R’ word and get it out of the way good and early
It is possible the causes are cultural rather than asylum related. Examples:
- FGM.
- Parental homophobia might be a factor. In Africa homophobia is rampant as are anti-gay laws e.g. Uganda.
- African religious cults. In the UK there have been cases like Victoria Climbie who was killed by her guardians, who claimed she was “possessed by evil spirits”.
I have been to Africa and I seen who in African culture it is normal for a man to beat his wife and children when he gets pissed off. There was one time a man had his wife on the ground kicking her on a busy street and nobody even looked.
It’s a culture thing
Cut out the repeated appeals and there will be an immediate improvement in the situation.
That won’t work, because the appeals process is dragged out to suit all vested interests, the scavengers cleaning up financially from this mess. Just like the similar gravy train going on in the courts system.
Where is the evidence this is linked to direct provision? Only 6000 people are in direct provision which is less than 10% of the African population.
Actually considering some in direct provision are not African its probably a lot less than that.
And who has to pay for this strikingly high number of African children who have to be taken into “care”? It is the hard-pressed Irish taxpayer. Why do we allow such unsustainable (and clearly unsuitable) levels of immigration into our country?
Hoping for smooth integration is pie-in-the-sky, and is yet another example of liberal naivety and self-delusion which takes no account of the negative consequences (such as the inevitable ghetto-isation) which accompany their long-discredited goal of multiculturalism.
Pushing any community to the edges of soceity creates social problems. Want a cohesive and connected soceity then what we need is a country where all people have equal access to services and oppurtunities regardless of thier race or class. What we have right now is soo far from that ideal.
What has Direct Provision got to do with it?
Figures from the UK show
“The majority of the looked after population is White (77%), with Mixed groups and Black or Black British making up approximately 9% and 7% of the looked after population respectively. These minority ethnic groups appear to be overrepresented in the looked after population (around 3 per cent of the child population of Great Britain is from Black or Black British and Mixed groups).
Direct provision is a factor and probably accounts for the discrepancy between our figures and the UK’s.
That, and racism.
“These minority ethnic groups appear to be overrepresented in the looked after population (around 3 per cent of the child population of Great Britain is from Black or Black British and Mixed groups).
Blacks are overrepresented in the UK figures. Someone do the math for Ireland and the picture will be more or less the same and racism has nothing to do with it no more than direct provision.
Thank you Aunt Simmionite I thought I was reading the report incorrectly when I read Janes comment.
And from the Guardian so beloved of many of those who comment here.
“the proportion of black people in jail in the UK was almost seven times their share of the population, whereas in the US the proportion of black prisoners is four times greater than their population share.”
Whatever the reasons behind these figures, direct provision can hardly be one of them.
Are you on drugs Jane?
I’m sorry, what’s the confusion? African-origin children represent 14% of the children in care in Dublin, despite making up only .5% of the population. That’s double the UK figures.
I said that direct provision and racism probably account for that discrepancy.
You do realise those figures were true of Irish people in British not too long ago.
Just high on life, Mark. There are so many wonderful, caring people posting here on the Journal. Oh, wait…
Aunty, I reckon generations of poverty and lack of education can account for those stats.
The preliminary results of the 2011 census recorded 58,697 people of Black African ethnicity and 6,381 people of any other Black background resident in the Republic of Ireland out of a total population of 4,525,281, meaning that 1.42 per cent of the population self-identified as Black.
Not 0.5% as claimed above.
Remember, never ever blame bad parenting, for fear of offending some idiots.
Ok Aunty, let’s say 1.42% so. That still doesn’t account for 11% of the children outside Dublin and 14% in Dublin who are in care being African.
“Aunty, I reckon generations of poverty and lack of education can account for those stats”
Africans have not been in Ireland for generations.
Aunty, you were talking about African populations in the US and the UK.
I am talking about people trying to paint decent Irish people as uncaring racists by people who can’t even get their facts right before launching into attacks on us. Direct provision is as generous as we can afford and provides much more than many of our own get. If one section of those here illegally are not happy with that then there is not much we can do only put it down to experience.
@Delaney – no they were not. now you’re making things up to suit your own agenda.
From leading black British academic Tony Sewell, writing in the national British press a couple of years ago. Black teacher and blogger Catherine Birbalsinghe has written similar.
“Black children fail at school because they do not concentrate, not because they are the victims of ‘institutional racism’, a leading black academic claims today.
“Tony Sewell, the son of Caribbean migrants, attacks the view that black pupils are held back by teachers who see them as ‘miniature gangster rappers’.
“The former teacher, who runs an educational charity for black children, instead blames poor parenting and the youngsters’ own lax attitude.
“Dr Sewell says that while it was once true that black pupils were held back by racism, ‘times have changed’.
“What we now see in schools is children undermined by poor parenting, peer-group pressure and an inability to be responsible for their own behaviour.
“‘They have failed their GCSEs because they did not do the home-work, did not pay attention and were disrespectful to their teachers.
“Instead of challenging our children, we have given them the discourse of the victim – a sense that the world is against them and they cannot succeed.”
Tony Sewell is a director of the Generating Genius charity and a consultant at Reading University.
Ronan, bad parenting is doubtless a factor in taking many children into care, I’m not even questioning that. I’d like to know, though, why African children are over-represented in care.
Most children are in care as a result of bad or non existent parenting. Perhaps that clears a few things up a bit.
Way to accuse a nation of been racist Jane just because u say “probably”.
Johnny, I used to believe that most people were decent and fair-minded. Reading these and other comments on the Journal I’ve grown very cynical.
“a sense that the world is against them” rampant that, even in America, even the African American scholars agree with that. it can lead to paranoia too, watching out for ‘all signs’ of racist remarks and finding wrong in everything.
People are being fair.Basing opinion’s on facts is the exact opposite of unfair.
The problem is quite easy to solve, just throw lots of money at it. Education, resources, etc, etc. Maybe we do need another bailout.
An article about African kids and the heading photograph is a shadow on a swing? Hmmmmm or am I looking into it a bit too much?
If you look closely the child in the shadow is Asian. Lazy sourcing of materials here by the Journal. Well spotted.
Look again, it’s a giraffes head.
Asian, Peter? How do you make that out? And what distinguishes the shadow of an asian, african or white child?!
How do you figure that the child is Asian.
Margaret, I see we’ve been deleted.
So much for the constitution, free speech and fair comment.
If you won’t look then i’m not going to do it for you.
…by Angelina Jolie.
Where’s the link to this “study”?
We’re all the kids in from direct provision?
Purely anecdotal in regard to direct provision.
Is racism evil ? Yes. Is Ireland a racist state ? of course it is. Many comments on this thread seem to be in denial, as if our colonial past somehow makes us immune to this sickness. It doesn’t. “ Few of us can surrender our belief that society must make sense. The thought that the State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied ” – Arthur Miller
Roysh on Mark!
Voodoo people, magic people.
Many of these immigrants come from traumatic backgrounds and as such mental health issues are to be expected and resources provided to assist these suffering and isolated people. Also education to help in adjusting to cultural norms here in Ireland to ease integration.
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