Is It High Time To Ban Corporal Punishment Of Children In Australia?

An international journal has argued that it is time for Australia to ban all corporal punishment of children.

The International Journal of Child Rights states the Australian Government had “not taken steps to prohibit corporal punishment”.

Australian QC Felicity Gerry and her US and UK co-authors said that 49 countries had already reformed laws to clearly ban all corporal punishment of children.

“It is not acceptable for the UK, the USA and Australia to remain missing from the list,” Ms Gerry said.

“It is high time to end the defence of reasonable chastisement. The removal of this defence would effectively remove the hidden nature of physical punishment of children and then allow for health and policy responses along with clear legal guidance on when to prosecute or not.”

The paper states: “Physical punishment of children is clearly counter to the UN CRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) which confers absolute protection for children against violence while in the care of parents … or any other person.

“Domestic legislation which condones family violence in the name of punishment of children and creates insuperable difficulties for clinicians trying to identify a child at risk from abusive parents from a parent who is otherwise caring but had a momentary loss of control,” it added.

Ms Gerry, a law lecturer at Charles Darwin University, said that corporal punishment may result to immediate changes in a child’s behaviour, but research showed that it was ineffective over time.

“It does not teach children why their behaviour was wrong or what they should do instead,” she said.

“Either society must come to that conclusion itself and demand change, or if it cannot do this, the law-makers in that society must make the brave decision to change the untenable laws that permit child abuse in the form of physical punishment.”

The paper found that smacking children as part of discipline was “deeply embedded in cultural views, government law and social policy” in Australia, the US and UK.

“Some proponents of corporal punishment of children believe that physical punishment of children is thought to teach respect for authority and failure to physically punish them leads to uncontrolled, disrespectful, acting-out behaviour,” the paper states.

“However, the more parents use physical punishment, the more aggressive their children become over time even when controlling for their initial levels of aggression, the frequency or severity with which children experience physical punishment is associated with increased.”