Victoria Climbié

This is a piece that I wanted to write a month or so back when Victoria Climbié's mother came to the UK and was lionised by the British media who hung on her every word about how dreadful it was that her daughter had been let down by the "system" and how her foundation was going to help make everything better. At the time I wondered why nobody asked Mrs Climbié why she had sent her daughter to live in London with a "great aunt" and whether she had stayed in contact with her daughter whilst she was in London.

Whilst researching this article I came across a fine article by Rod Liddle that covers all the bases; I suggest you take a read, but here's an extract:

"Last week Victoria’s natural mother, Berthe, was in the country to berate Britain for having failed to look after her daughter. She was treated with due reverence by everyone she spoke to and was commended for her “bravery” and ”dignity”. Never more so than on the BBC’s Today programme, where – quite unchallenged – she attacked social workers, councils and the government for having failed to implement the correct procedures in the wake of her daughter’s death.

Maybe Today felt unable to ask one or two more difficult questions, such as where a more direct responsibility for Victoria’s murder lies. So, as a former editor of the programme, let me point Today in the right direction with some of the questions I would have asked.

When you cheerfully handed over your own daughter for keeps to an almost complete stranger, a convicted fraudster who, with your blessing, intended to take her out of the country – did any money change hands, Berthe? If so, do you have a receipt? Is giving away your child to a fraudster recommended in the Ivory Coast Good Parenting Guide? And when you say that she came to Britain to make a better life for herself and contribute to Britain, was it a good idea for her to arrive here illegally on a false passport in the custody of a criminal guardian? According to you, there is a “tradition” among west African parents of sending children to Britain to “better themselves”. Isn’t it more the case that these children are shipped in as a lucrative investment, enabling their guardians to mop up all available child welfare benefits?

Did you ever visit your daughter while she was here, Berthe? Write her a letter? Maybe telephone from time to time? Did you even know that she was in Britain? (That loving “great-aunt” took her to France at first.) Certainly there were terrible mistakes made by the social services, mainly because they wished to respect the cultural integrity of west African immigrants with their tradition of, er, “strict discipline” of children. And that other tradition, of a bit of witchcraft and torture. When it comes down to it, though – who bears the greater responsibility for Victoria’s terrible death: British society or you? "

In this case as in many others, the liberal "we are all guilty" mindset kicks in and any criticism of the family is verbotten.