Submitted by crinadmin on
Summary: Speech presented at the side event organised by UNESCO at the 60th Session of the General Assembly in New York on 17 October 2005.
The panel today is an excellent opportunity to clarify one of the crucial topics that the Secretary-General’s study on violence against children has faced in almost every activity we have promoted so far: the prevalence and dangerous acceptability of corporal punishment of children. Despite the fact that every society publicly denounces violence against children as breaching their human rights, it remains prevalent, but often hidden. It is exactly because of this invisibility that certain forms of violence prevail and are rarely addressed. Corporal punishment is certainly a clear example of this. The concern about being hit, being smacked or receiving other humiliating and physically harmful forms of chastisement accompanies children inside their homes, inside their schools and within state institutions. Naturally, there may be different consequences and you may take very different approaches in each of these settings. The "settings" approach that the study has adopted is based on this idea and will built specific recommendations bearing in mind these particularities. But it is also very clear that without condemning this practice wherever it occurs, it will always be difficult to build strong protective environments for children. Ending corporal punishment of children should no longer be controversial in any place. We have to see it first as a simple and fundamental issue of human rights. Children have an equal right to protection of their human dignity and physical integrity. It is no more acceptable to hit a child than to hit a woman, an employee, an elderly relative [or an independent expert]. The law must provide children with equal protection from assault; the legal defenses of "reasonable chastisement" or "lawful correction" were used for centuries to justify husbands beating their wives, masters beating their apprentices. But societies have moved on and they must now quickly take this final step and prohibit all corporal punishment of children. It is sad and ironic that children, the most vulnerable of people, should have had to wait until last for this basic protection. There is nothing "reasonable" about hitting children and it cannot remain lawful. We cannot draw lines and try and define acceptable ways of hitting children. There can be no compromise, any more than we compromise in challenging all violence against women. In every regional consultation developed by the SGSVAC I had the opportunity of meeting with children. Children in all continents have told me how much they are hurt by this routine violence; how upsetting they find adults’ approval and acceptance of this violence; how it hurts them not only physically, but "inside". In a school in the Caribbean almost every child I talked to had been physically punished and hardly any of them had complained, or even knew they should complain. The same when it comes to punishment inside the family. This is not a trivial matter; the prevalence studies I have seen from states in all regions show that children are being hit from babyhood, often with implements. Research suggests that it is only when all corporal punishment is prohibited and the prohibition linked to sustained public and parent education that attitudes and practice change significantly and effective, non-violent forms of discipline are adopted. And we need to be clear: we are not talking about the mere criminalization of families. Fulfilling children’s right to equal protection under the law does not of course mean that parents should be dragged into court for minor assaults on their children. The first purpose of law reform is educational. Prosecuting parents is very seldom in the interests of their children. Interventions should be supportive and only become formal when it is judged to be necessary to protect a child from significant harm, and in the child’s best interests. Challenging corporal punishment, alongside challenging domestic violence against women, is no threat to the family. On the contrary, the promotion of non-violent, positive forms of discipline reinforces the family’s role in protecting children from all forms of violence. The Convention on the Rights of the Child upholds the family as the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children, and requires the State to fully respect and support families. All efforts to end corporal punishment, whether in schools, in families or other places, must include consistent and comprehensive efforts to offer notions on alternative forms of discipline. No practice will change if parents and teachers don’t understand different ways to pursue their educational tasks. In one boarding school I heard a principal saying that because it was recommended that teachers shouldn’t hit children anymore, she was now inviting police officers to do so. This is not an automatic process; we are talking about changing attitudes and social norms. But, at the same time that the complexity of this change needs to be considered, to continue to condone and legally accept this practice is absolutely incoherent and counter-productive. Unlike the more extreme forms of violence, this is a very personal issue, which engages most people. Most people were hit and humiliated in their childhood. Most parents in most states have hit and humiliated their own children. We do not like to think badly of our parents, or of our parenting. So this makes it difficult to see this issue as one of human rights and equality and to move on. But I am very encouraged by the accelerating global progress: each of the nine regional consultations held for the Study around the world have called for prohibition of all corporal punishment, including in the family, linked to educational measures to eliminate it. Globally, more than half the states have prohibited corporal punishment in schools and penal systems and 17 have prohibited it in the family as well. There are more commitments to do so from states in all continents. In Latin America, four countries including my own have bills to prohibit all corporal punishment before their parliaments. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has been promoting prohibition and linked measures to eliminate corporal punishment to countries in all continents for more than a decade. As my colleague Jaap Doek, the chairman of the Committee, has written: "Many citizens and politicians express deep concern about increasing violence in their societies. The credibility of this concern is questionable as long as they are not willing to seriously and systematically address the use of violence against children. And nobody should suggest that a little bit of violence is acceptable. That applies equally for adults and children". Other international and regional human rights monitoring bodies and high level courts in many states have echoed the Committee’s finding that the persisting legality and social approval of corporal punishment breaches fundamental rights. For example in Fiji in 2002 an appeal court declared: "Children have rights no wit inferior to the rights of adults. Fiji has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Our Constitution also guarantees fundamental rights to every person. Government is required to adhere to principles respecting the rights of all individuals, communities and groups. By their status as children, children need special protection…" In Europe, the strong human rights mechanisms of the Council of Europe have condemned corporal punishment. The European Committee of Social Rights has told states that prohibition of all violence is required by the European Social Charter and the Committee observed that it "does not find it acceptable that a society which prohibits any form of physical violence between adults would accept that adults subject children to physical violence." In June last year, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a detailed recommendation stating: "The Assembly considers that any corporal punishment of children is in breach of their fundamental right to human dignity and physical integrity. The fact that such corporal punishment is still lawful in certain member states violates their equally fundamental right to the same legal protection as adults. Striking a human being is prohibited in European society and children are human beings…". A major aim for the Study must be to challenge social norms which condone any form of violence against children and end legalized violence. It is impossible to do so without including corporal punishment. This has to be seen as a starting point: we cannot demonstrate a serious commitment to violence prevention and child protection while states continue to authorize corporal punishment in the home, in schools and other institutions and in penal systems. Legal change alone will not solve this issue, but it shows an important signal and ensures a base for comprehensive efforts to guarantee that the physical and psychological integrity of the child is fully respected.