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of safety we refer to any temporal place suitable for the reception of a child into which
the owner, occupier or person in charge thereof is willing to receive a child (The Child
Care Act No. 74 of 1983). This results in a vicious cycle of abscondments from places
of safety. Swart (1987) explains that because of the abused children's past bad
experiences with officialdom, Le. parents, social workers, teachers, police, etc. they
tend to be very suspicious persons when confronted with formal questioning and
actually display rebellion to involuntary removal to places of safety no matter how
good the motive is.
3.4.3 Relationship with things and ideas
In constituting his life-world, the abused child is increasingly concerned with ideas.
like objects, people or the attitudes of people towards himself, he becomes aware of
the significance ofideas for him and their implications for his own identity (Vrey 1984:
177). The abused child constitutes an inadequate life-world and this will eventually
influence his relations to ideas. The absence of a secure home environment and other
essential factors for his becoming, inhibits the proper development of his cognitive
powers. The life-world of the abused child will thus be inadequate because it focusses
mainly on the essences ofsurvival and the rejection of things and/or ideas that cannot
be utilised for survival purposes.
3.4.4 Relationship with moral and religious values
According to Vrey (1984) one of the aims of education is to bring the child to a point
where he supports the norms of his society from personal conviction. His culture
contains moral, religious, social and other norms deriving from the corresponding
values esteemed by the co=unity. The totality of these values is subsumed in the way
of life maintained by that community. The child's relations with religious and moral
values develop to a point where he will conform to such religious and moral norms of
his own free will In this regard according to Van Niekerk (1990 : 1) the abused child
has no real source of emotional security.