When negligence kills

Imagine this. You are a parent to a baby. You love your family, but parenthood is draining you physically, mentally and emotionally.

One night, while you are catching up on your much-needed sleep, you are awoken by the sound of your baby crying. You drag your sleep-deprived self to the kitchen with your hungry child in your arms.

Placing him on the dining table, you quickly prepare formula milk for his consumption, trying your level best to keep an eye on him while the milk is ready.

Suddenly, you hear a loud thump. You turn to check on your baby. He is not on the table. Your heart sinks.

You pick your unconscious baby from the kitchen floor and rush your child to the hospital. Upon a few hours, your baby is declared dead due to haematoma in the head.

Now, imagine this.

You send your baby to a babysitter. She takes care of a dozen children for 10 hours a day, five days a week. She is much deprived of a good rest and shows signs of depression.

One day, you get a phone call from her, frantically informing you that your baby is unconscious after falling from the dining table.

You meet her at the hospital, only to find out that your child has died due to blood clot in the head following the fall. The babysitter is accused of causing your child’s death through her negligence

Ask yourself this – how does the first case of negligence differ from the other? In my opinion, they don’t.

Constant stream of cases

For many years now, there is an almost constant stream of cases in which parents and people entrusted by parents to care for a child end up contributing to his or her death due to negligence.

However, I find the way we react to those cases mind-boggling.

You see, when a child dies, it affects an entire community, tugging the heartstrings of everyone and causes social tensions. People become upset and angry at the same time. And the widely accepted notion is that no one is affected by the death of a child than the grieving parents.

I suppose this is why whenever the party contributing to the death of the child is no other than the parents themselves, they tend to receive sympathies from the bystanders who would recognise the parents’ emotional distress and suffering instead of calling for the parents to be prosecuted for negligence.

“Have a heart, they just lost a child!” “They are already being punished.” “Punishment can never bring the child back.”

Unfortunately, when a child is killed due to someone else’s negligence, our society is very quick to point fingers at those whose negligence contributed to the death, demanding justice be served.

“I hope she rots in prison!” “Child murderer!”

Why the double standard?

Regardless of who is responsible

Is it not a parent’s duty to protect their children as it is of the individuals entrusted by the parents? If so, negligence contributing to a child’s death should be treated all the same, regardless of who is responsible for it, no?

Is a mother forgetfully leaving her child inside a parked car, resulting in the child dying of heatstroke, any different from a school bus driver locking his vehicle, forgetting that a child is fast asleep inside?

Are parents who leave their child sleeping alone in the house while they rush to get something, resulting in some horrible accident, really different from a caretaker who leaves a child in the house unattended with the same tragic end result?

If you ask me, parents shoulder greater responsibility to safeguard and protect their children then someone paid to do it. Oddly, when parents fail to do so, society is ever so forgiving. Why?

Even when parents select which babysitter or caretaker to entrust their child with, they have the responsibility to ensure they choose someone who can deliver good care and service to protect the well-being of the child in the absence of the parents. Oddly, when parents are negligent in doing so, resulting in the death of a child under the care of someone else, society is ever so forgiving. Why?

Are parents somehow immune from censure?

Cases of parental negligence amounting to death of a child aren’t new.

In the late 1980s, a nine-year-old girl was sent out of the house to buy breakfast. She was abducted, sexually assaulted, physically tortured and her mutilated body found just 200m away. Were her parents held responsible for their negligence which contributed to the death of the child?

Today, we see many parents doing the same. Not only are many underage children left at home alone while the parents rush out to get something, some of these children also routinely stay home alone after school while both their parents are at work.

Likewise, we still see and hear of young children wandering on their own in supermarkets, restaurants, night markets and even on the streets, despite the number of murder and kidnapping cases we’ve heard of throughout the years.

These parents have the same belief shared by many others across the world – they think nothing bad will happen to their child. Well, they are wrong.

Bad things can happen to anyone, and parents have no excuse for claiming ignorance or not being more vigilant about their children's safety.

Sadly, we are now in 2018, and parents continue not to learn from the past. No wonder so many continue to take their children’s safety for granted.

Enforce the law

Under Section 31(a) of the Child Act 2001, any person having the care of a child who abuses, neglects, abandons or exposes the child in a manner likely to cause the child physical or emotional injury, or causes or permits the child to be abused, neglected, abandoned or exposed, is liable to a fine of up to RM20,000, 10 years' imprisonment, or both.

Meanwhile, Section 33 of the Act states that parents or guardians who leave their child without reasonable supervision are liable to a fine of up to RM5,000, two years' jail, or both.

This seems fair, but enforcement does seem to take a back seat whenever a child’s death is contributed by the negligence of the parent.

But here’s the thing: as long as parents are not investigated for their failure to protect their children and prosecuted for any negligent misconduct, the horror stories will continue.

Yes, going after the parents who have just lost their child may seem cruel, but in order to protect the safety of children, the law must be enforced.

Of course, guilt and regret can haunt a parent for a very long time, especially when they have contributed to the death of their own child, but guilt and regret serve no purpose in educating our society.

We need to get the message across that a child is an individual with the basic right of being protected. And if punishing negligent parents is what it takes to spread the awareness, then that is precisely what we should do.

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FA ABDUL is a passionate storyteller, a growing media trainer, an aspiring playwright, a regular director, a struggling producer, a self-acclaimed photographer, an expert Facebooker, a lazy blogger, a part-time queen and a full-time vainpot. -Mkini