(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Calls to children’s charity helplines have more than astonishingly doubled in two years as 12,000 cases have been reported in the past 12 months.
Callers have told of starving children begging neighbours for food, youngsters left home alone by working parents who cannot afford child care and kids sleeping in freezing rooms.
More than two thirds of cases were so serious that police or social workers had to become involved.However this in turn piled added pressure on overstretched child protection services. NSPCC chiefs fear vulnerable families hit by the recession are being pushed over the edge as their financial problems mount.In 2011, 21,000 children were subject to child protection plans because they were at risk of neglect, up 7.5 per cent on the previous 12 months.The NSPCC’s Dr Ruth Gardner said: “There is clearly a worrying trend.” A dossier seen by The Sun reveals the suffering behind the statistics.One caller to the NSPCC helpline said: “The mother is drinking 24/7 and the child, who is three, is not being looked after properly.“I walked into the house, the mother was passed out and the door wide open. The child was playing with a kettle and had got a bottle of bleach.”The report is a clear statement that the financial crisis of the EU and United Kingdom is now affecting children.
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