Our responsibility towards children

I feel I must comment on the excellent leader (September 24) that focused on parental and governmental responsibilities towards minor children.

There is no doubt at all that Minister Dolores Cristina's contention that parental responsibility must come first and above all other is fundamental; it is also true, as the leader writer observes, that it is the duty of the elected representatives of the people (and here I deliberately include the Opposition Party and other parties outside the Legislative Assembly) to guide and regulate in order to protect the vulnerable.

Having attended a much needed Conference on Poverty organised by the EDRS of the University of Malta, I learn to my horror that 21.9 per cent of children in the Maltese islands are living in poverty.

Mons. Victor Grech, founder of the Caritas New Hope Foundation for Drug Abusers emphasised the need for "political will". He should know; he lives the tragedies of many Maltese families every day!

Angele Deguara was more pointed when she rightly declared "...cut out the rhetoric and act".

Angele Abela's précis of her (and Rev. Carmel Tabone's) latest publication Family Poverty And Social Exclusion contained a heartfelt plea to all professionals (I assume politicians and parents are included) to listen to the cry of the poor.

Sadly, we are breeding a society of children, the parents of tomorrow, many of who are abusing substances from a very early age, some of them dependent on "smack" heroin by the age of 16, others so psychologically dependent on alcohol in their early teens that, unless protected, at least until the age of adulthood (I believe this to be 18) will become the alcoholics of tomorrow.

It has been empirically proven that people who start consuming alcohol before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence at some times in their lives than those who have their first drink at age 20 or over (Grant B.F. - Journal of Substance Abuse, 1997).

This is also poverty and we need the political will and parental resolve to ease the pain.