HUMAN RIGHTS
Media needs guidance on reporting of child abuse
- Published: 18 Feb 2013 at 00.00
- Newspaper section: News
Where do we draw the line between raising awareness of important issues and ensuring we protect the rights and dignity of children who have been through traumatic experiences? We often forget that vulnerable children are real people.
What may be a headline for a few days will be with that child for the rest of his or her life. In raising awareness sometimes we cause further harm by traumatising the survivors of already horrific experiences. When this happens we have to ask ourselves _ for whose benefit is this happening?
Early this month, a 12-year-old ethnic Karen girl escaped after five years of torture at the hands of a Thai couple in Kamphaeng Phet province. Her injuries reveal years of horrific abuse. Her torso and arms are so severely scarred, scalded again and again by boiling water. Her skin resembles rough leather and she can no longer raise her arms.
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