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UN TAKES BRITAIN TO TASK OVER SMACKING CHILDREN

The United Nations warned UK ministers yesterday that their refusal to ban smacking in the home was a serious violation of the international convention to protect the rights of children. It challenged the government’s view that parents should be allowed to use “reasonable chastisement” to teach discipline in the family, including smacking that fell short of violence.

Children’s charities were delighted that the UN committee on the right of the child said it was “very concerned that legislation prohibiting all corporal punishment... is not yet in place in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland.”

The 10-member committee of international child welfare experts said it “deeply regrets that the UK persists in retaining the defence of ‘reasonable chastisement’ and has taken no significant action towards prohibiting all corporal punishment of children in the family.” This was in breach of a previous UN report in 1995 and amounted to “a serious violation of the dignity of the child.”

The report was welcomed by Mary Marsh, director of the children’s charity NSPCC^. She said the 1860 law of “reasonable chastisement” was past its sell-by date. “It sends out a dangerous message to parents that hitting children is acceptable and safe, which it clearly is not.”

The UN congratulated the UK on some improvements in children’s rights since 1995, including the abolition of corporal punishment in schools and the Human Rights Act. It praised the commitment to end child poverty but warned that the programme lacked a strategy and adequate resources.

THE GUARDIAN, Oct. 5, 2002