Current laws around physical punishment are ‘unjust and dangerously vague’, senior UK doctors warn
It was “a scandal” that Scotland and Wales had outlawed smacking but not Northern Ireland or England, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said on Wednesday.
“The laws around physical punishment as they stand are unjust and dangerously vague,” said Prof Andrew Rowland, a consultant paediatrician, who is the college’s officer for child protection. “They create a grey area in which some forms of physical punishment may be lawful and some are not.” “I see children who have been physically punished with a smack or a slap sometimes with an implement. They can be hit on their leg, arm, back or bottom.
Bess Herbert, an advocacy specialist at the campaign group End Corporal Punishment, said “hundreds of studies” had found that, besides physical and mental harm, the damage from being smacked could include poorer cognitive development, a higher risk of dropping out of school, increased aggression and perpetrating violence and antisocial behaviour as adults.
“In England and Northern Ireland, children continue to be exposed to a legal loophole that can undermine their basic right to protection under the guise of ‘reasonable chastisement’,” Ms Barrett said. – Guardian
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