Children and adults who as children have been in care, have identified the way in which their attempts to speak out and voice their wishes and opinions have been and continue to be ignored or trivialised by their caretakers. Some of the evidence has indicated that on occasions children have been victimised within the protection system, as a direct consequence of attempting to disclose abuse. The exposure of the extent to which abuse occurs within the child welfare system, serves to focus attention on the way in which children are subordinated to adult power and challenges the rhetoric that child protection and child welfare policies are implemented in children's best interests. The powerlessness of children in those systems designed specifically for their protection, reflects the powerlessness of children more generally. The powerlessness of children, and the difficulties children have in being heard is not limited to the child welfare system, but is characteristic of other institutions in our society, such as schools.
Children are a muted group, denied participation in major political and legal systems.
They do not have access to the means of exerting power, or protecting their own vulnerability. They are restricted in the extent to which they can make decisions about their own lives. They do not play any part in the processes which determine the policies which affect them. They, unlike other subjects of discrimination, are peculiarly unable to organise themselves politically'. But there is something more at work.