If one recording she has heard stays etched on Hadas Hakimi’s heart till her last day, it’s the seven and a half hours from a day care center in Kfar Yona north of Tel Aviv. Almost throughout, you can hear a baby and a 2-year-old alone in a room; for four and a half hours their terrible wailing goes unanswered.
“The mother of a 5-month-old baby told me that her son is at a day care with four other babies,” Hakimi says. “She says he comes back with puffy eyes as if he cried a lot, and very bad diaper rash.”
Hakimi gave the mother a recording device and advised her on how to use it and hide it. The next evening they had the recording. But unlike the countless times she did this before, this listening was so hard on her she spread it out over two days.
For three years Hakimi, known to many parents as “the children’s guardian,” has been working tirelessly to inform parents about abusive preschool and day care staff in Israel. She provides parents with a recording device and listens to the result. If it sounds improper to her and the parents, she advises them to file a police complaint and take their story to the media. (And she makes sure the other parents know about her endeavors.)
On the day the recording mentioned above was made, Hakimi says, only two children came to the day care – the baby who wore the recording device and the 2-year-old. The other three children were ill and stayed home.
“At the beginning of the recording you hear the day care worker greet both children...
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