Shared Responsibility

No, this time the question is not as it usually is in such cases: How could this happen? The question is: How could we have let this happen? All of us. When children go hungry in a prosperous society like ours, when children are beaten in a state with a social welfare system and the rule of law, it is everyone's problem.

Kevin was unlucky to have been born into a family of drug addicts. His father was known for being prone to violence. From the beginning, the social situation was disastrous, and then Kevin's mother died. There were indications that she was killed by her husband. Nevertheless, Kevin remained in the hands of a man who was unfit to care for a child.

It was surely a failure on the part of the authorities. Bremen's senator for social affairs, Karin Röpke, took the consequences and resigned. Bremen's mayor, Jens Böhrnsen, had also known for months about the boy's tragedy. He didn't give up his office. Is he less responsible than his senator? Whether the social welfare system in a German state, such as Bremen, works is also that government's responsibility -- or is the inviolability of children merely a secondary aspect of policy?

However, it would be too simple to hold only the representatives of bureaucracies and agencies responsible. Of course, youth welfare officers must not make such mistakes, since as their mistakes can be fatal. But their freedom to act is limited by laws and regulations, and these are, to put it mildly, not always focused on children's well-being. That must be changed. Courts, officials and the police must be able to cooperate more closely and be given more space to make independent decisions when a child's life is so obviously in danger.

Others already have this discretionary power. We do. The neighbors of families such as the one in Bremen do. But we cop out when we see that children are neglected or beaten, abused or locked away. There are many reasons why, but none of them are good reasons.

Not every screaming child is beaten, not every thin child is malnourished, not every girl or boy who hasn't been seen for weeks is suffering through martyrdom. But let's be honest: we recognize the signs when we see or hear them. And we still look away. Torment begins long before the very worst things take place. Kevin suffered for many months, perhaps even his entire two-year lifetime. In other cases, a woman's nine children disappear and no one claims to have known she had ever even been pregnant. Other parents hide their children's corpses in a deep freezer and no claims to have noticed the children were no longer around.

It's hard to believe.

And even if no one really did notice or suspect something, it doesn't make it any better. On the contrary, officials, police and courts must be notified in cases of violence and neglect, so they can take action. That is our responsibility.

Dirk Bathe is a politics editor at DW-RADIO (ncy)