WAR EFFECTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 November 1943, Page 3

WAR EFFECTS

ON CHILDREN IN SYDNEY. INVESTIGATION SHOWS NEED FOR ACTION. (Special P.A. Correspondent.) SYDNEY, November 24. _ After examining the home conditions of 20,000 children, the New South Wales Child in War Time Committee, has reported that 80 per cent of these children are no‘t adequately cared for after school hours. The committee also found that 1749 children of pre-school age were at home without their parents. Of these, 150 “latch-key children” were locked inside the houses. The remainder had the run of the house and yard. Reports on individual children disclosed- that in the great majority of the cases investigated, both parents were factory workers or that the father was in the services, and the mother was at work. The Sydney “Telegraph,” in an editorial, says that the committee’s report discloses “one shocking result of allowing married women to take jobs in war factories before providing creches and kindergartens where they can leave their children.” Other commentators say that lack of parental care is making 1943 a record year for child delinquency. School teachers have been asked to organise after-hour activities to keep the children off the streets.