Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Physical punishment of children :
time to end the defence of reasonable chastisement in the UK, USA and Australia

Rowland, AG; Gerry QC, FR; Stanton, M

Physical punishment of children :
time to end the defence of reasonable chastisement in the UK, USA and Australia Thumbnail


Authors

AG Rowland

FR Gerry QC

M Stanton



Abstract

As at March 2016, 49 states had reformed their laws to clearly prohibit all corporal punishment of children (United Nations 1989) in all settings, including the home (Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, n.d.) By January 2017 this number had reached 52. As the trend moves towards abolition, it is not an acceptable position for the United Kingdom (UK), the United States of America (USA) and Australia (Poulsen, 2015) to remain missing from that list. Whilst they are, effectively, a child (a person aged under 18 years of age), is the only person in all three countries that it is legal to hit. This article seeks to restate arguments in this area in a simple way to restart the debate in a modern context where understanding of child abuse is perhaps more widespread than it ever was in the past. On 20 October 2014 a report, Living on a Railway Line, was launched in the UK to mark the 25th anniversary of the signing of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which took place on 20 November 1989 (Rowland, 2014). It recommended removing the defence of reasonable chastisement in relation to the punishment of children. This article seeks to build on that agenda in a comparative context taking a three way perspective from the UK, the USA and Australia. It concludes that moves to prevent family violence are progressive but the position of a society where physical punishment of children is permitted yet child abuse is forbidden is not a tenable one. Reducing the number of cases of child abuse must begin with a clear message from society that physical punishment of children, whatever the circumstances, is unacceptable. The situation is serious enough to introduce aspirational legislation to remove justifications for physical punishment of children with the aim of modifying behaviour within society.

Citation

time to end the defence of reasonable chastisement in the UK, USA and Australia. International Journal of Children's Rights, 25(1), 165-195. https://doi.org/10.1163/15718182-02501007

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 5, 2016
Online Publication Date Apr 28, 2017
Publication Date Apr 28, 2017
Deposit Date May 11, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 14, 2018
Journal The International Journal of Children's Rights
Print ISSN 0927-5568
Publisher Brill Academic Publishers
Volume 25
Issue 1
Pages 165-195
DOI https://doi.org/10.1163/15718182-02501007
Publisher URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15718182-02501007
Related Public URLs http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/15718182-02501007

Files






You might also like



Downloadable Citations