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The case against corporal punishment
The case against corporal punishment
Abstract about corporal punishment
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In South Africa it is still legal for parents to make use of corporal punishment in order to discipline their children. The reason therefore is that a defence exists in South African common-law for parents when a claim based on assault is raised. This defence is known as reasonable disciplinary chastisement and it is seen as ‘n ground of justification. Physical assault, such as corporal chastisement is seen as unlawful. In the following discussion current legislation on the subject, world views and the interpretation of the Constitution will be examined to determine whether or not this defence has a future in South African law.
1. Development regarding the use of corporal punishment in the difference spheres:
“Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” (Proverbs 13; 24, New International Version)
South Africa has a hybrid law system. Amongst other influences the law is especially influenced by Roman Dutch Law, which also includes Cannon Law. Cannon Law is mostly influenced by Scripture, as seen in the example in the use of Proverbs in the formulation of the principle of corporal chastisement. Therefor it was accepted as punishment in South Africa for many years. It clearly states that if you love your child, you must chastise him. Therefore corporal chastisement was used in al spheres: individuals in charge of alternative care for children used it as means to discipline them; schools administered it to pupils who misbehaved even courts used it as sentence for juveniles who committed crime. This, however, is no longer the case. The factors that brought about the change will be discussed below.
1.1 Alternative Care:
The use of corporal punishment is explicitly prohibited in alternati...
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...or of the two evils, than to limit all those rights of the child.
3. Conclusion
Looking at the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and even the United Nations Study on the Violence against Children it visible that a global movement is taking place to prevent any physical harm from coming to a child, even in the form of chastisement at home.
By prohibiting corporal chastisement at home as a form of disciplinary punishment, South Africa will adhere to its international legal obligation. Parents will no longer be allowed to inflict physical harm to their children as a form of disciplinary punishment. Thus the rights of children, as previously mentioned, will no longer be infringed.
The conclusion is that in the future, reasonable disciplinary chastisement as a defence will seize to exist.
Smacking has become a controversial debate in today’s society as a group of doctors tried to make a smacking of children illegal (Browne 2013). Similarly, smacking caused numerous deaths of children (Browne 2013). Smacking is a physical punishment which was a typical way that parents used to guide their children in past. Moreover, they believe that smacking is more effective and it is acceptable. Physical punishment is illegal in 33 countries, whereas in some states and territories physical punishment by parents is legal as long as it is “reasonable” such as Australia, United State, Britain and Canada (Why smacking should be regarded as a crime 2013). There are several reasons that smacking should be illegal in Australia. Physical punishment leads to aggressive and antisocial behaviour. Furthermore, Australian children have right of protection from violation. Finally, smacking children may lead to death.
Reading, Richard. "Speak softly - and forget the stick: corporal punishment and physical abuse." Child: care, health and development (2009): 286-287. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 April 2011.
When describing a physical altercation between two adults, the term is assault and battery. Assault on an individual has more than immediate effects; the effects can last a lifetime in severe cases. In all fifty states, it is a crime to hit, strike or use corporal punishment in any deliberate manner towards any person over the age of eighteen. However, this law does not apply to physical force being used on minors. Spanking, whipping, and paddling are among a few common references to this form of punishment. Physically disciplining children has had many names over the years. No matter which term is used, corporal punishment has a negative impact on every party involved. It is a widely used, socially accepted method of discipline. “Approximately 94% of three and four-year old children have been spanked in the past year (Slade & Winssow 1321). Although spanking is a widespread practice, it is becoming more controversial. The negative effects of spanking greatly outweigh the benefits. Spanking is a socially tolerated view promoting abusive patterns, and has a negative psychological impact in teaching children that pain, fear, and confusion promote conformability.
Parents' discipline of young children affects many aspects of their lives. There are many different methods of discipline being used my may different parents. Each parent has different methods to helping their children distinguish right from wrong. Some methods are more beneficial than others, but when comparing methods, it is clear to all that corporal punishment is the most frowned upon form of discipline. Some may wonder why it is looked down upon today if it was a major method of discipline in the 1900's that seemed to work just fine. A recent survey has shown 40% of parents with children under 3 yrs. old have yelled at their child and 40% of parents in this same age bracket have spanked their child (Regalado, M., Sareen, H., Inkelas, M., Wissow, L., & Halfon, N. 2004). Also, 11% of parents have spanked their infants under 1 year of age and 16% of parents have yelled at them. (Regalado, M., Sa...
Arguments arise when the topic of “spanking” comes up. There are good and bad feelings that are brought out about it. The world has different opinions on how misbehavior should be handled. Race, ethnicity, and age also have influenced how spanking is looked upon. Is spanking too much for children? Is spanking just beating children? This tool is used too get the attention of the child in a firm manner. Spanking is an effective way to show punishment, although it is looked upon as a crime in today’s era through the nation’s eye.
Corporal punishment is a traditional practice of imposing pain, which is commonly used by parents towards children to remove an unpleasant behavior. It is also a physical force towards a child for the purpose of control, and as a disciplinary penalty inflicted on the body. The parents play a pivotal role in honing and disciplining their child with regards to his/her actions. Hitting them with physical objects and forcing them to do cleaning works are some of the ways of discipline, which were done at home. In the year 2000, research, the convention, and law reform – modified the punishment towards children. According to research, 20,000 people in the U.S – particularly those who are 20 years old and above, 1,258 experienced punishment by pushing, grabbing, slapping and hitting. 19,349 people had been reported that they didn’t experience such kind of punishment. Moreover, it is also executed on the children, in order for them to act independently and to visualize the negativities of being careless and dependent to others. Punishment is also
Child abuse prevention must first begin with understanding the different types of abuse. The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) defines abuse as the motive, act, or lack of action of a parent or guardian that leads to a physical or emotional injury (Rein 11-12). Each state defines abuse differently; Pennsylvania defines physical abuse as the recent act or lack of action by a perpetrator causing or risking a serious non-accidental physical injury to a person that is under the age of 18 (Clark 351). Corporal punishment, a controversial topic in physical abuse, is defined as deliberately inflicting physical injury because the child misbehaves. Types of corporal punishment include spanking, slapping, pinching, choking, paddling, or hitting the child with objects (Gerdes 182-190). Part of the debate over physical abuse is whether schools should be able to use physical punishment on their students. Some believe that corporal punishment is the only way to teach children about misbehaving and that a minor pain is justified if it corrects a larger problem (Gerdes 198-201). Others think corporal punishment may lead a child to believe violence is acceptable or to think...
The use of physical discipline arises an abundant amount of negative outcomes for the children impacted by the physical punishment. Typically, the physically punished child will result in having several psychological troubles fro...
Larzelere R.E. (2000), Child Outcomes of Nonabusive and Customary Physical Punishment by Parents: An Updated Literature Review, Vol 3, No4
The physical abuse of children covers a wide range of actions from what some might term ‘justifiable chastisement’ such as slapping or spanning to the sort of actions which most would agree constitute deliberate, sadistic cruelty against children.
Watkinson, A & Rock, L (2014) ‘Child physical punishment and international human rights: Implications for social work education’, International Social Work’, 1-13.
On a student’s cell phone, a teacher is caught hitting students with a thick stick. He continually hits everywhere from the students’ hips to the head harshly without a hesitation. This video is opened to the public by a student in the class posting it on the Internet. According to the other students, they were punished because they skipped class when the school inspectors came. All the people who looked at it on the Internet were surprised to see this kind of behavior. Recently, we’ve heard a lot on the media about punishment by teachers in school. Some people agree with the teacher’s power to punish, claiming that it is a part of education. However, contrary to this opinion, I disagree with corporal punishment because physical punishment brings only temporary effects in correcting children’s behavior. Also, it can humiliate a child by insulting his or her personality and have a poor affect on their self esteem. Besides, physical punishment can be abused because there aren’t any concrete standards to regulate how much punishment is proper in disciplining.
“It hurts and it’s painful inside – it’s like breaking your bones; it’s loud and sore, and it stings; it feels like you’ve been adopted or something and you’re not part of their family; you feel like you don’t like your parents anymore; you feel upset because they are hurting you, and you love them so much, and then all of a sudden they hit you and you feel as though they don’t care about you” (Pritchard 9). These are the feelings of those juveniles who suffer from corporal punishment. Corporal punishment has been one of the main topics of research in Psychology in last few decades. Although people had believed, “Spare the rod and spoil the child” but in the present age of science, research has revealed that the corporal punishment causes more harm to the children instead of having a positive effect on them. According to UNICEF, “Corporal punishment is actually the use of physical measures that causes pain but no wounds, as a means of enforcing discipline” (1). It includes spanking, squeezing, slapping, pushing and hitting by hand or with some other instruments like belts etc. But it is different from physical abuse in which punishment result in wounds and the objective is different from teaching the discipline. Although Corporal punishment is considered to be a mode of teaching discipline and expeditious acquiescence, however, it leads to the disruption of parent-child relationship, poor mental health of juveniles, moral internalization along with their anti-social and aggressive behaviour and it is against the morality of humans.
Corporal punishment is the physical disciplinary method used by parents, teachers, and school administrators in an effort to correct a child’s undesirable behaviors. The use of physical force is one that is often times controversial and usually evokes very strong reactions. These feelings surface, and opposing views clash, when scandals surrounding corporal punishment hit the media and heated arguments in the comments section of articles emerge. While corporal punishment occasionally makes its way into the limelight, it is a decision all parents are faced with eventually and often times daily. For example, when a toddler is sprawled out on the grocery store floor kicking, hitting, and flinging
Corporal punishment means to educate by implement of physical pain on learners in order to enhance their ability of studying. As we know, students will often follow the instructions which given by their instructor. However, if they don’t, many instructors are likely to introduce the corporal punishment such as hitting, slapping, spanking and kicking rather than promotes the oral education method to force their students to have a better performance. Gradually, corporal punishment have become a widely known phenomenon all over the world. According to the Department of Education’s 2006 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), it clearly showed that a total of 223,190 students without disabilities received corporal punishment in that year around the