Legislation won't help

The four years of Rose Pizem's life were characterized by severe, at times unbelievably tortuous, suffering, and her tragic end was apparently even crueler. The story of this child's life is so extraordinary in every way that it is hard to make quick conclusions and draw lessons from it for all of society. The proposals to impose the death penalty on child murderers will not save the next child whose close relatives decide to get rid of him. No punishment is relevant in such cases.

To conclude it is possible to prevent the kind of suffering Rose Pizem endured by means of legislation increasing supervision of parents is wrong. It will not prevent extreme cases of family dysfunction, as there was in this case. In both Rose's nuclear and extended family there were people who abused her, each in his own way, and who had experienced abuse as well. The entire family chain was unable to provide support for this unfortunate child - and sealed her fate.

Therefore, the proposals of recent days calling for a change in legislation and punishment, suitability tests for parenthood and similar ideas that exploit the tragic story to forge a new order in supervision are pointless, useless and illogical.

Grief does not have to be translated into hysteria. The social welfare authorities have the power to do a great deal in cases where they know what is happening, and there is no reason to give them a freer hand from now on to remove children from their parents' homes. Every case is different, and alert neighbors do not have to conclude that every crying child is a victim of abuse by the family and should be given up for adoption.

Rose Pizem was too young to be under the watchful eye of the educational and social welfare institutions, which are skilled at identifying abuse based on the behavior of children in nursery or elementary school. She was a victim of migration from one country to another, because important information about her life was not transferred from the French courts to the Israeli social welfare authorities. Perhaps in the area of international reporting there is something to learn from this case. But Rose Pizem was mainly a victim of human evil and exceptional dysfunction, of the type that the authorities can only limit as much as possible, but not prevent entirely.

Thousands of children grow up in families that are unable to provide them with security and happiness, and many of the parents who turn to cruelty are second- or third-generation child abusers. In a society that sanctifies privacy, it is difficult to know what is happening in the homes of the nuclear or extended family, even in an intimate country like Israel, especially when there is no obvious physical evidence of abuse.

The child Rose Pizem suffered at the hands of her parents, her grandfather, her parents' partners in Israel and abroad. If there was anyone outside the family who knew and did not report, he certainly bears responsibility. Had the child been removed from her family as early as possible, she may have had a chance for a good life with an adoptive family. Had the authorities been aware of her true situation, they had the legal means to act on her behalf. No legislative change is needed for the authorities to be able to carry out their task, with at least partial success.