Government urged to ban smacking
Two parliamentary committees are calling on the Government to introduce a ban on smacking.
The Government has already moved to ban corporal punishment in public places such as day care centres and schools.
However, some fear that restricting parenting in the home is a little too interfering and more like nanny-statism.
Dr Liam Fox, Tory spokesman on health is one of those. He said: ‘Outlawing smacking would be an outrageous intrusion by the state into parents’ legitimate rights and duties.
‘There’s a whole world of difference between the form of discipline most parents use and the premeditated and persistent cruelty which has come to light in cases such as that of Victoria Climbie.
Following the tragic death of 8-year-old Victoria Climbie in February 2000, the Government made efforts to improve the lax institutional regulations which allowed her to die at the hands of guardians Marie Therese Kouao and Carl Manning.
The members on the Human Rights Committee call on the Government to observe the UN. Convention on the Rights of the Child comes with this in mind.
The Blair government also has an eye on Europe where physical punishment of children is illegal in several Scandinavian countries including Sweden, Norway, and Finland.
Claire Rayner, a spokeswoman for the Children are Unbeatable Alliance, said: ‘Hitting children is wrong, and the law should say so in the interests of children’s rights and child protection.’
David Hinchliffe, the Health Committee chairman said: ‘We urge the Government to use the forthcoming Green Paper on children at risk to remove the increasingly anomalous “reasonable chastisement” defence from parents and carers, which can impede the prosecution of child abuse cases.’
Both the Health Select Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights are calling for a change to the law which allows for reasonable chastisement.
