Raphael, 19 days
Martin, six months
Hanna, 4 years old
Wojciech, 7 months
Emilia, 3 years old,
14-year-old from Siedlec
Six children, six stories of suffering, six tragedies, only from 2024.
Each of these children died at the hands of their guardians.
A blunt instrument hit him in the head. He caused "a severe injury to health, and the consequence was death".
Mother drowned her daughter in the bathtub.
Mother left the baby at home for hours.
The girl died from dehydration and starvation.
My father murdered my boy with a knife.
About 30 children die all year in Poland as a consequence of force by close adults. The word "about" is disturbing, especially erstwhile it comes to "death". The vast majority are little than 3 years old. This is the data of the Foundation We give the Children the Force, which, based on media reports, collects this information. So we all know it's an excuse for reality. An image fragment.
Data that are not available
When we started working on the editorial action on force against children, the first – reflexive and apparent – question we asked ourselves was: how many children die all year in Poland at the hands of parents, carers? But no estimates, specifically. What's the hard data? What's the full picture?
We asked this simple question to the most crucial institutions in Poland. And it is inactive hard for us to believe what we have heard or read.
– Police Headquarters:
Asp. szt. Aleksandra Laskowska, office of social communication of the Police Headquarters: In answer to your question, I kindly inform you that the Police office does not collect data in your requested range. Each act in question requires an individual approach, a detailed legal and criminal assessment, taking into account all the circumstances in which it was committed.
– National Prosecutor's Office:
Press Office of the National Prosecutor's Office: – We do not have the study you request.
– Ministry of Justice:
The Press Office only provides data on the number of persons convicted of acts qualifying as home violence.
I besides straight ask Deputy Minister Zuzanna Rudzińska-Bluszcz. He writes briefly, "I'll check." But that's the end of contact.
– Ombudsman for the Rights of the Child
Monika Horna-Cieślak in SMS: "No specified data are presently collected, only media reports. We're working on making it change."
Her spokesperson Paulina Nowosielska:
– present there is no single aggregate place where information on children who died at the hands of parents or legal guardians would be aggregated. The spokeswoman of the Child's Rights sees the request for it to arise.
– Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy
Press Department: – The issue of home force falls within the remit of the Ministry of Equality – delight contact the Chancellery of the Prime Minister.
– Chancellery of the Prime Minister – no reply.
It turns out that no 1 in Poland truly knows how many children die all year as a consequence of force from the closest adults. No state institution collects this data. Why?
A death that was meant to make a difference
Let's go back to 2023. On May 8, eight-year-old Kamil of Czestochowa dies. For 5 days, the boy lay pinned under a tile oven. Burned head and chest, burned hair, broken arms and legs. On a tiny body, marks of beating, kicking, burning with cigarettes. His stepfather poured boiling water on him, throwing him on a hot coal stove.
No 1 heard him cry. And in a tiny townhouse on Kosynierska on the Częstochowa Stradom, there were respective twelve people. In the flat on the ground level – apart from the torturer and his victims – there were: mother, aunt, uncle and 7 children.
The substance is all the more emotional that the household was under the care of many institutions. On a wave of social outrage, a bill was drawn from the seismic freezer to increase children's safety. And it was named Kamila.
A number of changes have been made, including the creation of a "Serious Case Review" – a squad on cases of analysis of events that have caused the insignificant to die or have suffered severe wellness damage. This 1 works at the Justice Department. Standards for the protection of minors have besides been introduced. Later, the alleged Kamilka Act was amended.
Magdalena Mazurek, half-sister of the deceased Kamil: – I do not see anything changing at the moment. See how many children died after Kamilka died. What?
Effect of a broken thermometer
Is 30 children tiny enough? Behind these figures are circumstantial names, stories of suffering and force that led to death. At least 30 children vanish annually in Poland. Which means all 12 days a kid dies. due to deficiency of empathy, deficiency of consequence to harm and violence, systemic errors, not in time.
Is 30 children tiny enough? Don't answer that.
We ask the ruling people this question, "Is 30 children small?"
Is that not adequate to start monitoring children's injuries?
Or is it best not to know her scale?
Social worker: – The effect of a broken thermometer. If you beat him, you don't know how advanced your fever is. It's the same thing: until you have circumstantial data, you don't know what your problem is. How many kids die.
Under the Law on the Protection of Minors, anyone who has learned about the death of a kid at the hands of their parents, guardians, is obliged to inform Counselor Grzegorz Wrona. He is the president of the Panel on the Analysis of Events resulting in the insignificant being killed or severely harmed, which operates with the Ministry of Justice.
How many signals have you received? – I ask patron of the Crow.
- Just three. You can learn more from the media. We are after a series of meetings with the central offices that assured us that this would change. But even in the case of the second communicative from the Danube – no 1 informed us. I'm beginning to realize why this can happen," he says.
Further work on amending the Kamilka Act is planned. And from unofficial information, the collection of these data is planned as another anti-violence tool for children. But no 1 can tell erstwhile this change will happen.
I besides hear from a fewer people to keep asking questions about this case and "put force on it."
And that's what our action is about: to pay attention to the problem of force and pressure. On the ruling, legislators, neighbors, teachers, colleagues, colleagues. due to the fact that force against children, their death at the hands of their parents, is simply a substance that affects us all. And all of us are liable for these tragedies: you, me, her, him, us, you, them. due to the fact that we don't respond erstwhile we hear a baby crying. due to the fact that we don't force institutions. due to the fact that we're letting politicians make this subject a priority.
Listen to Andrzej Falkiewicz, a social individual with a 30-year internship:
– Sometimes I ask people, "What would you feel if 1 day you saw individual pulling a baby out in a black bag?! And you heard something was going on. due to the fact that it's been crying behind the wall these past fewer weeks. And you say it's no of your business. What would you feel if you saw that baby dead in a black bag?"
In the close future, we will print texts that show the problem of force against children.
