Ave Maria, performed by Celestyna Koszak, rang out beautifully in Bolesławiec’s market square. In this way, opposition to the brutality inflicted on children was expressed in Bolesławiec. The families who came were deeply moved by the meeting; there were tears and strong emotion.
– I have the impression that standing guard over the lives and well-being of children already born in Poland is a very lonely occupation. Not very prestigious and no longer considered quite so sacred, says Grażyna Hanaf, who led the meeting for Kamil.
The Act on the Analysis of Child Abuse Resulting in Death
Kamil was not the first child born who was tortured to death in a family.
– Around 30 children a year are beaten to death in Poland in their own families, said Anna Krawczak, PhD in the humanities, co-founder of the Interdisciplinary Childhood Research Team at IEiAK UW, in an interview with TVN.Anna Krawczak.
And on her profile she wrote:
(...) Two years ago, in May 2021, Zuzia from Toruń was only three years old when she was admitted to hospital with brain swelling and subsequently died. Her ordeal had lasted since birth; the family was under the supervision of MOPR, had a probation officer’s supervision and a family assistant. The children had previously been removed from the family and placed in foster care, after which the court decided to give the “loving” parents another chance. (...)
Based on Kamil’s and Zuzia’s stories, it is also possible to carry out a violence risk-factor assessment and obtain the maximum values in it (that is, immediate intervention to secure the children and a critically high risk of danger to their health and lives). I once showed such a test on my profile. I conducted it in relation to the not-quite-one-year-old Blanka from Olecko, who was also beaten to death and whose story is almost identical to Kamil’s and Zuzia’s. (...).
We do not have a single legal act devoted to protecting children—not their parents, not social services, not probation officers or foster care, but children. We do not have a national strategy to combat violence against children.
So I do not understand why people are surprised that more children in Poland die as a result of abuse—it would be extremely strange if, given this scale of systemic inaction, we managed to lower the rates of harm inflicted on children.
There is also a certain conflict of interest.Proactive child protection entails removing the shiny tinsel from the icon of the holy biological family, in which violence supposedly cannot occur because the parents have absolute parental authority over their children—and for 80 years we have been unable to change the term “parental authority” to “parental responsibility.”