The NSPCC

Up To 200,000 Brit Babies 'At Risk Of Abuse'

So the NSPCC begins a new fundraising campaign based on figures plucked out of the sky.

Up to 200,000 infants are at risk of abuse in families with mental health, addiction or violence problems, researchers have warned.
The NSPCC said under-ones were eight times more likely to be killed than any other age group in childhood.
Launching a new campaign to support the most vulnerable babies, the charity released the first estimates of how many infants are living in high-risk family situations.

Typical of any 'charity' campaign we have impossibly high figures, no actual studies cited and a solution which involves more intervention from the people behind the campaign. All this requires more money to be given to those who have set themselves up to 'help' the target group in question.

As with anti tobacco, alcohol temperance and public health, the NSPCC and groups like it are not charities but businesses. In this case, part of the growing abuse industry which is growing around lies and manipulation, with the accumulation of wealth as it's primary goal. Your wealth, taken through your taxes and the donations that you have been tricked into giving because you believe the cause is good.

There has been heightened concern about how agencies care for vulnerable young children since the horrific death of 17-month-old Baby P - later identified as Peter Connelly - while on the at-risk register in August 2007.

Heightened concern indeed, because the baby P fiasco was sensationalised by the national media, but 200,000 babies at risk? I suppose that depends on how you define 'at risk', and what you want to do with that definition.

After the baby P story had done it's rounds in the national press, The Independent reported that one child every week is killed by it's own parents. That's 52 children per year.

Granted, 52 child deaths at the hands of parents every year is not something to be sniffed at, but if 200,000 children really are at risk then the death toll would be a lot higher than 52.

It all comes back to how you define 'at risk'. Is it just children who are being physically abused by their parents in a manner that causes harm, or does the field go wide enough to encompass children who live with parents who take soft drugs or like a drink, but never do anything to harm their kids?

There has to be a lot of guesswork in a figure like 200k. Have they looked at stats for drink, drugs and mental health, and made an assumption that a certain percentage of these people must be putting their children at risk.

As no mention is made of how these figures came about or who researched them, we just don't know. The omission of the data in itself puts the conclusions in question though.

The NSPCC has grown from a small charity whose purpose was to help abused children, into a large campaign / lobby group whose purpose is to make money by spreading scare stories and portraying men as violent abusers and paedophiles, splitting families and driving a wedge between children and adults. Creating a climate of fear for it's own ends.

The NSPCC needs to be stopped. Angry Harry will tell you why.