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Summary: The East and Southern Africa consultation for
the UN Study on Violence against children is
taking place in Johannesburg from 18 to 20
July. This is a summary of discussions of day 2.[JOHANNESBURG, 19 July 2005] – The second day of the consultation
opened with two presentations on corporal punishment, followed by a
discussion session. This first session was then followed by group
discussions where participants looked at existing legal and institutional
frameworks, advocacy, training, research and data collection.
Peter Newell, Joint Coordinator, Global Initiative to End all Corporal
Punishment of Children, who is also launching a regional report on corporal
punishment of children, said people cannot go on pretending they are
serious about child protection and not banning corporal punishment of
children.
He explained that the legality of corporal punishment comes from the
English common law defense of reasonable chastisement, which has been
retained by 70 countries but that no country or state owns corporal
punishment. “It has to be addressed,” he continued, “because it goes to
the root of how we regard children, if it is permissible to invade their
physical integrity, it makes other forms of violence easier to justify.”
Law reform on this issue is essential, because it would send a clear
message into privacy of the home to promote positive forms of discipline, it
is not about criminalising parents.
Newell mentioned that in the eight previous consultations, clear
recommendations were adopted to prohibit all forms of punishment,
including in the family.
However he could still hear some governments, NGOs, and others, making
more excuses to wait, such as the need for more support for parents, for
teachers, etc. “From a child perspective, this is intolerable; in terms of
international law, it is illegal. Why should children wait longer? Should we
wait to have full employment and anger management classes for men
before banning violence against women?” he ended.
Shirley Mabusela, UNESCO Study on Corporal Punishment, Trustee of the
Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, talked about corporal punishment from a
regional perspective. She said that violence happens because there is
conflict between children and adults, but communications and conflict
resolution works. “This country,” she explained “has the capacity to
democratise all values of life and changing these in the constitution, and
this should serve as guidelines in working on corporal punishment. South
Africa has adopted laws and policies prohibiting corporal punishment in
state institutions and other places, we still a need to expand this to
families.”
Another important point she raised was the need to think about what the
alternatives to corporal punishment are and what they might do to
children, as teachers, for instance, might resort to other damaging
alternatives that might not be physical, but still harm children emotionally
or psychologically.
“There needs to be a commitment to address this sort of violence and for
others to stop using this as a god-given right,” she said, “we do not have
a right to hurt one another, we do not have the right to hurt children as
discipline. […] There must be a recognition that corporal punishment is
violence, is violence, is violence against children!”
Finally, she explained that it was crucial for inter-generational
conversations to explore ways in which solutions can be found and where
there are disagreements. We must explore ways in which those who work
with children deal with conflict, anger, etc. “We must come up with
recommendations to adopt to ensure corporal punishment is banned,” she
concluded.
Carol Bower, from RAPCAN South Africa, an organisation that works on this
issue, highlighted that there seems to be a belief that no corporal
punishment, means no discipline, and the belief that there is a distinction
between legitimate corporal punishment and child abuse, which there isn’t.
A speaker from another South African NGO said that governments can put
in as many laws as they want, but unless parents embrace them, nothing
will change. She explained that her organization worked with some
parents who were worried about talking about children’s rights, and were
worried about their children talking about this, but this was because of
the use of international terminology, “we have always had children’s
rights, but they are called something else.”