A Wesley Mission survey of 1200 adults found that being bullied as children caused 70 per cent of them to suffer from low self-esteem and a lack of assertiveness later in life. They have failed to develop the sense of identity and belonging that is vital to human wellbeing.
The report is titled Give kids a chance: No-one deserves to be left out. Its release coincided with Friday's observance of the United Nations Universal Children's Day. It is one of a number of reminders in the past week that children have suffered permanent damage because of bad policy and inappropriate treatment by adults or other children.
On Thursday, the children's rights group Save the Children led a demonstration on the lawns in front of Parliament House to urge the Federal Government to create a national children's commissioner. This was a promise of Labor in opposition in 2003.
They were also marking the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Earlier in the week, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull apologised to the Forgotten Australians whose lives were devastated by their experience of living in care as children. Many Australians were shocked by the statistic that 500,000 of us grew up in such circumstances.
Meanwhile the director of Jesuit Refugee Service Australia, Father Sacha Bermudez-Goldman, issued a call on behalf of child refugees and asylum seekers after visiting Christmas Island.
He said that while some families are accommodated in the community on Christmas Island, others, including their children, are housed in detention-like conditions for periods of up to several months. He said this practice threatens to breach the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that children should be detained as a last resort, and for the shortest possible period of time.
It's pleasing that the UN Convention has had successes over 20 years in helping to transform conditions for children globally through strategies to decrease child mortality, provide opportunities for education, and combat child exploitation. In Australia, the apology to the Forgotten Australians is a good first step. But it is only a beginning.
Federal Labor must explain what has become of its promise to appoint a children's commissioner. Hopefully the promise will be honoured and an appointee can singlemindedly work with the bureaucracy to address past injustices and also implement preventative strategies for the future. They can take practical responsibility for the plan of