Phillip Pullman and other children's authors are now refusing to give lectures and readings to youngsters in the UK because of the new Independent Safeguarding Authority regulations, the Vetting and Barring Scheme, currently coming into effect. Every person who comes in contact with children is now required to go through a vetting process to make sure they are not pedophiles.
This includes people who teach, transport, advise, and supervise children, volunteers, trustees of children's charities and more. All of these people will be registered and issued cards. The information database gleaned from these investigations are then required to be shared with other government agencies.
Under the guise of protecting the children, Big Brother government is looming large. Of course, there is suspicion if you don't want to be investigated. Here's an interesting commentary about the consequences.
I remember hearing about the beginnings of this long ago, when men weren't allowed to sit next to children on British Airways flights. I didn't know it had continued to spread into the raging disease of paranoia that it has become.
ReplyDeletememphis: And it's starting to spread in this country, too.
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