Children must know dangers

SOMETIMES the media is accused of promoting copycat behaviour by highlighting specific crimes. However, the two young girls who were the object of an apparent abduction attempt in Dundalk this week stressed they were acutely conscious of the dangers as a result of the publicity surrounding the apparent abduction of two girls in England.

The gardaí are following a definite line of inquiry in the Dundalk case, though they suspect they will have great difficulty in securing a conviction.

Incidents of child abduction are extremely rare in this country. Even suspected cases frequently turn out to have a wholly innocent explanation. However, the Dundalk incident, coming in the wake of what happened in Britain, highlights the necessity for the proper education of children in relation to such dangers.

The Department of Education introduced a personal safety skills programme for schools in 1991. Some 99% of schools have participated in in-service training, but only 76% have actually implemented the Stay Safe Programme. This figure is unacceptable. It means fractionally under one in four schools are not teaching the programme, even though their teachers have been trained to do so.

The programme is designed to provide crucial information to children making them aware of potentially dangerous situations and developing skills to protect themselves and other children.

There is little point in training teachers if those personal safety skills are not passed on to children. The teachers are not in danger of abduction but children are. They need to be educated on the dangers.