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[17 September 2007] - A leading United Kingdom children's charity has warned ministers that they must reverse the law that allows parents to smack their children, amid evidence that it is fuelling 'invisible abuse'. The Children's Act 2004 was meant to protect children, and prevented anyone claiming they had administered a 'reasonable punishment' if it left visible bruising. However, it did allow parents the legal defence of 'reasonable chastisement' if they gave their child a mild smack without leaving a mark. Amid controversy, and to the dismay of several charities, MPs rejected a total ban on smacking or hitting. The government is now reviewing the law, and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has submitted fresh evidence of the harm it claims is caused by it. The charity argues that the compromise law has actually confirmed to some parents that they have a legal and justifiable right to hit their children. The NSPCC gives as an example a child who was referred to it for therapy after having been sexually abused by her uncle. 'In this meeting, the girl said that she was frightened because her Dad had told her: "I can still hit you without leaving a mark".' The charity worker then spoke to the father about it, but he withdrew her from therapy and social services were unable to intervene further because the alleged action - hitting her without leaving a mark - was legal and didn't constitute assault. An NSPCC submission to the review states: 'Children continue to be hit and hurt by their parents and carers invisibly and with impunity, and the government has no consistent mechanism for monitoring how often and how hard and what, if anything, is done about this.' Review Last June the Children's Minister, Beverley Hughes, ordered a review of the relevant part of the law, Section 58. She said there needed to be a full consultation with parents and experts about how this was working. Her department is also carrying out a survey of parents' attitudes. There has been continued unhappiness over the law. Recently Sir Al Aynsley-Green, the Children's Commissioner for England, called for the 'reasonable punishment' exemption to be scrapped. In 2005 the Commission on Families and the Wellbeing of Children, led by eminent child psychiatrist Professor Sir Michael Rutter, said smacking could escalate to 'frank abuse', and argued it was wrong for children to have less legal protection than adults. It suggested that smacking was usually done out of anger and 'social stress' rather than as a 'considered disciplinary measure'. The NSPCC submission also points out that the emotional pain caused by smacking can be enormous. It states: 'Physical punishment has been sanitised through language that minimises the reality of what is done to children, denying their true experience of hitting. As one five-year-old boy comments: "It makes you feel sick inside and it breaks your heart".' Its argument that the Act has not led to a decline in family violence is also supported by work done by the charity ChildLine. Last year telephone helpline staff for the organisation talked to 14,561 children about physical assault. Around 88 per cent of them had been assaulted by a family member. Further information
pdf: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2170387,00.html