According to the U.S.
National Library of Medicine homicide is one of the top 3 causes of death
in children between the ages of 1 and 4.
It would seem that 3 out of 4 of these child homicides are at the hands
of addicts.
Though addiction is not clearly defined as the murder of
one human being by another human being (homicide), I assure you that the
outcome of deliberately continuing to use/act in obsessively compulsive ways
(addiction) ultimately leads to and causes the murder of a child. An addict
will murder his or her own child, and even someone else’s child, and it is horrific
and beyond tragic that we continue to sit back and watch this happen over and
over again. You would think that the frequency
of our news channels and newspapers plastering on their front pages the tragedy
of yet another infant, toddler, child being killed at the hands of an addict
would be enough for us all to realize that child homicide is inevitable when addiction
is involved.
Take for example the infant
in Korea murdered by his gaming addicted parents, left to starve to death,
wailing and screaming for nothing more than to be fed and loved, while they
played video games. Then there is the
ever present in the news, in our minds, and in our hearts, Baby
Bella of Massachusetts. She was
brutally abused, beaten and murdered, then discarded by a heroin addicted
mother and her heroin addicted boyfriend.
The heroin supposedly convinced the boyfriend that he was ridding the
world of demons disguised as a beautiful 2 ½ year-old angel.
And before Bella there was the beautiful baby Avalena, also of Massachusetts,
whose heroin addicted mother, drug abusing father, and foster mother’s drug
abusing boyfriend are all to blame for her death.
When will we tire of seeing the lives of innocent and
precious children stolen at the hands of an addict? When we will mandate that there be an irrefutable
nexus between addiction and child abuse and neglect? And when will we as people, parents,
brothers, and sisters admit to ourselves that maybe we should no longer be in
absolute awe and disgust when we hear of the horrendous murder of a child, because
we knew it was bound to happen at the hands of an addict. . .
" It would seem that 3 out of 4 of these child homicides are at the hands of addicts.
ReplyDeleteCitation, please.
5 minutes with google didn't turn up anything to corroborate this. Best I could find was that worldwide, most child homicides are caused by warfare, and in the US are caused by caretakers.
If there is statistical evidence to back up your "3 out of 4" claim, how do you define addict? Your post cites addiction to video games and heroin, so I can't tell.
Do you have a suggestion for how to reduce the epidemic -- something like mandatory drug testing for parents, or metering their internet use? And then removing the child and placing them into foster care if they fail to pass?
This bog was very eye opening about the individual stories of the children, whom we have seen in the media. Those were only snap shots of some of the tragedies that happen all over the place. I think something should be done to help these children. I would love to see how this problem could be solved.
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