One of the things that shocked me most during the last couple of weeks was the reading of Terry Philpot’s article in The Tablet of October 12. In ‘Falling through the net’ Philpot wrote about the protection (or the lack) of children in England.

“Every week, a case emerges of a child who has been beaten or starved to death by a parent. The authorities routinely pledge that lessons will be learned from these all-too-frequent tragedies. So why do they appear endlessly to repeat themselves?”

Two weeks ago in Birmingham the report following a Serious Case Review, or SCR, into the death of two-year-old Keanu Williams, a two-year-old child concluded that he died in heart rendering circumstances. His family was his destruction not his protection. A report by social workers in Birmingham concluded that “Keanu died because there was a failure across every agency to see, hear and respond to him. Keanu died because ­people missed opportunity after opportunity to intervene.”

Other horror stories follow. The four-year-old Daniel Pelka, was starved and beaten to death in Coventry in 2012. Hamzah Khan, aged four, died in Bradford starved to death while in the care of his mother, Amanda Hutton, who has begun a 15-year prison sentence for manslaughter.

Read this shocking statement by Philpot: “One child dies every week [in the United Kingdom] as a consequence of neglect and abuse.” And, as if, this piece of news was not bad enough, he added: “This figure is constant and the record of the United Kingdom compares favourably with other European countries.”

I do not know of the situation in Malta. I hope and pray that it is much better. But undoubtedly there are many Maltese children who suffer a lot. Neighbours can help by alerting social workers when they see suspicious behaviour. A phone call in time can reduce harm and suffering to innocent children.

Children suffer not just because of cruel or irresponsible parents and social workers who do not fulfil or are preventing from fulfilling their duties. Last August I wrote about another kind of suffering which children are subjected to at home. I wrote about cyber bullying. The peg for my blog was the suicide of Hannah Smith who could not take the bullying through the infamous Latvian website, Ask FM.

Since then it has become fashionable for some people to pontificate about cyber bullying. A recent edition of Xarabank features some of them. It was unfortunate that those working in this area in Malta were almost totally absent during the programme. This did no one any good.

The Be Smart Online project in Malta have a very user friendly website. Just click on http://www.besmartonline.org.mt/ If you click on it there is a red button which cannot be missed. It says REPORT ABUSE. Anyone suffering from cyber bullying or who has encountered any problems while using the Internet can report this abuse. Action, and prompt action, is taken.

Policies in this sector should be based on research and not on anecdotal evidence or personal agendas. The EU Kids Online project has been conducting a lot of research on children’s use of the Internet. Cyber bullying is, quite naturally, one of the topics studies. Thousands of children and parents from 25 different European countries were studied. The results about bullying in real life and in cyber space are particularly interesting. If you are interested in knowing more about this research you can click here. You will find all the research that you will need to know more about all aspects of Internet use by kids.

Not all is negative on the children’s front.

Malala, the Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban last year is a clear example of the resilience of children. She not only survived the attack but continued campaigning for and championing the education of girls. In the beginning of October, a year after being shot, Malala has been awarded the EU Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

The Taliban had shot her for her campaign for the education of females. Malala knows that the Taliban can try again to kill her. She is not afraid. One of her very strong comments during an interview she gave was: You can shoot me but you cannot shoot my dream.

It is the duty of us adults to let children dream and to empower them to realise their dreams.