Prime Minister M. Topolánek's address at the opening of the "Preventing Violence Against Children" conference on 30 September 2008
Protecting children against all forms of violence – the state's responsibility
When we want to prevent violence against children – the reason we are here today – we cannot concentrate on only one detail or symptom. Even if those would be interesting for the media and widely discussed. This conference has the word "prevention" in its title. Yes, this is the correct approach. We see on television the shocking results of violence against children. And naturally, we require punishment. But this is about more than punishing the offender. We want to heal the causes. We want to effectively prevent evil, to prevent children from suffering.
Undoubtedly a strong and well-functioning family is the best way to prevention of violence against children. No social worker, police officer or judge can replace the ties between loved ones. Our first concern must be to create an environment for family relations to develop properly. It would be bad if we were to allow ourselves to become manipulated by images in the media and devote most of our efforts to pathological phenomena. On the contrary, 90 % of our work must be in the interest of healthy families. In this way, there will be fewer cases of violence, and they will be resolved better.
Of course the state is not renouncing its responsibility to protect children against all forms of violence. The government has prepared and continues to prepare a number of legislative and executive steps; together they create a connected system of protective rights for children, prosecutions for encroaching upon those rights, assistance to children and integrating threatened children into society. Its components include improved coordination among doctors, social workers, police officers and an early warning system. Respective ministers will speak about this specifically. I don't want to count up all of the individual initiatives, but there really are dozens. And I think this is the first government that has taken up the issue of protecting children's rights this comprehensively, without harmful inter-ministry conflicts. Nonetheless, I am convinced that this all this is only a necessary prerequisite, and in no way is adequate. Only when a family – even a replacement one - works well, will we be able to isolate and solve the problem of violence against children.
The first are parts of prevention of violence against children, as well as changes to the social and taxation systems that will sharply increase support to families with children and motivate them to work. Because a functional family is one where the family members work. And the fact that due to reforms, the standard of living for families with children is increasing faster than with employees without children is a completely clear expression of governmental priorities. As part of the prevention of violence against children, the civic code has been prepared to provide priority for children under the law on the It is the high percentage of children in institutional care that distinguishes us from developed countries.
The assistance families receive includes paternity leave, support for company nursery schools and mini-nursery schools and motivation for employers to create part-time positions; these also help prevent violence against children. The best part of prevention is also a change in society's atmosphere. Indifference in others is a tyrant's best ally. What's more, in comparison with other EU countries, there is little interest in the family, which is expressed in such things as a consistently weak offer of services for families with children. The best prevention is simply to create an environment in which tendencies toward violence are minimalised. It is good to know how to resolve the problem, but it is even better to know how to prevent it from happening and spreading. We cannot sit and do nothing about images and reports of violence toward children They call directly for countermeasures. And the government is active. Whether it is about domestic violence, in schools, in institutional care or even the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Regardless, let's try to change these negative motivations into positive ones. Let's support what is healthy, and by doing so we will limit pathological signs. The opposite approach leads only to these pathological signs reproducing. A caretaker state does not treat these social problems; it causes them. It turns what is bad into something normal, instead of building on the good. This is a well-known fact.
It is still true that the family is the foundation of the state, and not the other way around. Our goal, therefore, is to renew once more natural civic virtues, including responsibility for one's self and his family. What definitely must not happen is that we build a stiff protectoral system on the basis of alarming reports of violence towards children, one which as a result limits the rights of families to raise their offspring. We would be literally throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
