T he International J ournal of Children’s RightsB R I .docx

T he International
J ournal of
Children’s Rights
B R I L L
N I] H O F F
I N T E R N A T IO N A L JO U R N A L OF C H I L D R E
N ’S RI GH T S
2 2 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9 bisi
brill.com/chil
Can we Conquer Child Abuse if we don’t Outlaw
Physical Chastisement o f Children?
M ichael Freeman
Emeritus Professor of English Law, Faculty of Laws,
University College London, United Kingdom
michaeLjre[email protected] uk
B ernadette J. Saunders
Senior Lecturer, Social Work, Faculty of Medicine,
Nursing & Health Sciences, Monash University, Australia
[email protected]
Abstract
Initially, this paper was delivered as a keynote address at the
17th i s p c a n International
Congress held in Hong Kong in 2008. It addresses the question:

Can we conquer child
abuse if we don’t first outlaw physical punishm ent of children?
It is argued th at chil-
dren’s low status in society and children’s less than optimal
development are inextrica-
bly linked to corporal punishm ent in childhood, as is the
physical abuse of children
th a t all too frequently begins as disciplinary violence, often
euphemistically described
as “smacking”, b ut tragically escalates, resulting in injuries
and even death. Attention is
drawn to increasing evidence from research around the world th
at reveals the futility
and avoidable negative consequences of physical chastisement,
and the paper ends on
an optimistic note foreseeing the end of the corporal punishm
ent of children in Asia
and elsewhere - a world in which children’s rights are
respected and children’s child
hoods are freed from the pain and fear of disciplinary violence.
Keywords
physical chastisement - corporal punishm ent - child abuse -
children’s rights -
parenting
© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2014 | DOI
10.1163/15718182-02204002
6 8 2 FREEMAN AND SAUNDERS
Background

This article began life as a keynote address presented at the
17th ispcan
International Congress held in Hong Kong in 2008. In Hong
Kong, as in m ost
Asian countries, parents com m only corporally punish their
children as a means
o f discipline and control. Moreover, in Hong Kong, as in m ost
states and territo-
ries in Australia, corporal punishm ent or “reasonable chastisem
ent” remains a
com m on law defence to the assault o f a child by a parent or
guardian. Further, in
Hong Kong, interpretations o f provisions against violence and
abuse in the
Protection o f Children and Juveniles Ordinance 1951, the Dom
estic and
Cohabitation Relationships Violence Ordinance 1986, the
Offences against the
Person Ordinance 1950, the Crimes Ordinance 1971 and the
Protection o f Children
and Juveniles Ordinance 1951 accom m odate corporal punishm
ent in childrear-
ing (End Corporal Punishment o f Children epoch, 2014). In
many parts o f Asia,
there exists both an entrenched cultural view that physical
chastisem ent is inte-
gral to childrearing and a strong resistance to attitudinal and
behavioural change.
Though now perhaps less entrenched, tolerance o f parental
corporal punish-
m ent in English-speaking countries, such as Australia and the
United Kingdom,
also persists and challenges to its legitimacy also continue to be
resisted. Indeed,
as Freeman observed 35 years ago, significantly at the same
time as Sweden took

the visionary step to outlaw all physical punishm ent o f
children:
... [w ]e live, as w e always have done, in a violent society, o f
w hich the fam-
ily is a true m icrocosm ...the family is a real cradle o f v io le
n c e ... as condi-
tions o f childhood and experiences o f family violen ce
socialise into a
“culture o f violen ce”.
FREEMAN, 1 9 7 9 : p.l
Introduction
In the 1940s and 1950s in the United Kingdom and in Australia
m ost children,
certainly m ost boys, were caned at school. M ost parents also
physically pun-
ished their children, som etim es w ith canes and other im plem
ents. Childhood
w as a painful experience - odd, because w e are encouraged to
think o f child-
hood as the happiest years o f our life. The myth, o f w hat John
Holt called, the
“walled garden” o f “Happy, Safe, Protected, Innocent
Childhood” (1975:22-23),
w as (and is) ju st that - a myth, w ith poverty, disease,
exploitation and abuse
rife across the globe. In schools in the u k , and in m ost schools
in Australia,
children can no longer be beaten but, as they live in these
countries, their
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CHILDREN’S RIGHTS 22
(2014) 681-709

CAN WE CONQUER CHILD ABUSE IF WE DO N’T OUTLAW
683
parents retain the right (actually the freedom) to h it them . This
is because
these countries have yet to jo in the growing trend o f civilized
nations in Europe
and now beyond to ban com pletely the physical punishm ent of
children w ithin
the home.
As at October 2014, w ith the exception of the United States and
Somalia, 194
countries have ratified the u n c r c (1989) yet, following
Sweden’s lead in 1979,
only 40 countries have since banned physical punishm ent in all
locations,
including the child’s hom e. Prior to the beginning of this
century, only eight
countries had introduced a ban. Sweden was followed by
Finland (1983),
Norway (1987), Austria (1989), Cyprus (1994), D enm ark
(1997) and Croatia
(1999). In 2000 Germany, Bulgaria, and Israel introduced a b an
(Israel’s legisla
ture followed the lead of its Supreme Court). Iceland (2003),
the Ukraine
(2004), Romania (2004) and Hungary (2005) were the next
countries to follow.
In 2007, seven m ore countries progressed to a b an - Spain,
the Netherlands,
Togo, Portugal and Venezuela. Also Uruguay, w hich was the
first Latin American

country, and New Zealand, w hich rem ains the only English-
speaking country
to do so (for a detailed account of strategies th a t led to this
New Zealand
reform, see Wood, Hassall, and Ludbrook (2008)). The Republic
o f Moldova,
Liechtenstein, Luxemburg and Costa Rica ban n ed corporal p u
nishm ent in all
settings in 2008 and, in 2010, Poland and Albania jo in ed this
select group. Five
African countries, in addition to Togo, have recently adopted
this progressive
stance - Kenya, Tunisia and the Republic of Congo in 2010,
South Sudan in 2011,
and Cabo Verde in 2013. In 2013, Honduras becam e the fourth
Latin American
country to ban physical p u nishm ent in all settings, an d M
acedonia also intro-
duced a ban. In 2014, Malta, Brazil and Bolivia (the fifth an d
sixth in Latin
America) becam e the m ost recent countries to introduce a ban,
while
Turkm enistan’s b an (introduced in 2002) was also officially
confirmed this year
(End All Corporal Punishm ent o f Children e p o c h , 2014).
Brazil, a recent coun-
try to b an corporal punishm ent, has a child population o f
about 59 million
(u n i c e f , 2013). It is the largest country in the world to
achieve full prohibition,
raising the global percentage o f children legally protected from
physical p u n -
ishm ent from 5.5 p er cent ( e p o c h , March, 2014) to
approxim ately 8.2 p er cent
in June, 2014. No longer considered to be “simply a fact of
childhood”

(McGillivray, 1997, p. 211), corporal pun ish m en t in these
countries cannot be
defended as a lawful, reasonable or justifiable violation o f a
child’s body even,
and perhaps particularly, if delivered w ith disciplinary in te n t
Nepal has m ade
a com m itm ent to p rohibit all violence in childrearing, but, as
at October 2014,
this has n o t been confirmed in legislation (End All Corporal
Punishm ent of
Children e p o c h , 2014). And so have several other South
Asian countries, as
discussed further below.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CHIL DRE N’S RIGHTS 22
( 2 0 1 4 ) 681 -7 09
684 FREEMAN AND SAUNDERS
What is Physical Chastisement?
Murray Straus defines physical chastisem ent as “the use of
physical force
with the intention of causing a child to experience pain, b u t
not injury, for
the purpose of correction or control of the child’s behavior"
(1994, p. 4). And
so it is “smacking”, but not only smacking. There are “loving
taps” and “little
smacks" b u t there are “good” spankings and beatings using
implements. All
of these “punishm ents” h u rt and are intended to hurt. That is
why they are
inflicted. It is pain that makes these actions punishm ent, and

the intention
of causing pain that distinguishes punishm ent from other
parental responses
to children’s behaviours which may incidentally cause pain, for
example
grabbing a child who is about to run into the road. Hitting the
child when
s/he has been retrieved is punishm ent. (It is worth reminding
ourselves that
John Stuart Mill justified pulling someone back from a
dangerous bridge
(1986:111).)
How Many Children are Hit by Parents?
In their childhood, almost all adults were hit by their parents.
Evidence from
research in 32 countries, including the us, U K and Australia,
suggests more
than 90 per cent (Straus, Douglas, and Medeiros, 2014). Hitting
children may be
declining, and this may stem from its abolition in schools, and
it may be less
severe (as we will see, the law in some countries now limits it
rather more than
in the past), but it is still a prevalent practice. Moreover, much
physical punish-
m ent characteristically occurs behind closed doors preventing
exact estimates
of its prevalence, especially against infants and very young
children who are
even less likely than older children to talk about their
“disciplinary” experi
ences or to be seen by others outside of the family (Dodd,
2011).

A glimpse at prevalence statistics around the world (see Dodd,
2011) includes
the following. A survey of 933 adults in the Bahamas found that
77 per cent of
children had been “spanked” (Brennen et ai, 2010) and in
Trinidad and Tobago
a 2005-2006 survey suggested that 54 per cent of children had
received corpo-
ral punishm ent in the previous month ( u n i c e f , 2010a). In
Africa, 99 per cent
of 500 Kenyan women, aged 18- 24, revealed that they had
experienced physi-
cal violence in childhood, including being beaten with an
object, punched,
kicked, choked, burned, stabbed, forced to put spicy/bitter
substances in their
mouths, being locked or tied up, and denied food (Stavropoulos,
2006). In the
Philippines, a survey of 270 students, with an average age of
12, found that
61.1 per cent of the children had been physically punished,
mostly being
I N T E R N A T IO N A L J O U R N A L OF C H I L D R E
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CAN WE CONQUER CHILD ABUSE IF WE DON’T OUTLAW
6 8 5
pinched, at home (Sanapo and Nakamura, 2010). In Ireland,
more than 25 per
cent of 1,300 parents surveyed in 2010 had physically punished
their children in
the preceding year (Halpenny ef al., 2010). In Paraguay, 61 per

cent of more than
800 children and young people aged 10 to 18 years who
participated in a survey,
reported suffering violence and mistreatment at the hands of
family members
( u n i c e f , 2010b, cited in Dodd, 2011). In the United States,
one study suggests
that the corporal punishm ent of three to 11-year-old children
had declined by
18 per cent between 1975 and 2002 yet in 2002 nearly 50 per
cent of eight and
nine-year-old children had been hit with implements and over
three-quarters
of pre-school children had been spanked (Zolotor et ai, 2010).
Similarly, the
results of a Canadian survey, published in 2005, indicated that
59 per cent of
mothers of pre-school children had corporally punished their
children two
weeks prior to the survey (Ateah and Durrant, 2005). In
Bangladesh, a 2008
report ( u n i c e f , 2009) revealed that 74 per cent and 91 per
cent of children
respectively responded in a survey that they had been physically
punished by
parents and school-teachers.
How Often and How Severely are Children Hit?
Many children are hit often. There m ust still be parents like
those the
Newsons (1968 (new edition 2007); 1976) found in their famous
studies,
over 40 years ago, who use corporal punishm ent daily. They
quoted a pack-
e r’s wife who used the stick about three tim es a week and, in

answer to a
prom pt w hether she also used her hand, responded: “Yes - oh
very often;
every tim e he passes me, I’m helping him on his way!"
(Newson and
Newson, 1968 (new edition 2007), p. 442). It was comm on to
collect data
from only one parent. This, unsurprisingly, led us to underestim
ate fre-
quency. But research in the u k , which collected data separately
from m oth-
ers and fathers, suggests the punishm ents inflicted are additive
and closely
connected. As Nobes and Smith argue:
From the child’s perspective it is the combination of maternal
and paternal
punitive actions that is important. Focus on only one parent’s
actions
will often lead to a poor estimation of the extent to which
children in two-
parent families experience physical violence. In particular, it
will lead to
underestimation when an individual parent is identified as a
frequent,
severe or abusive punisher, for the child is in fact likely also to
be experienc-
ing high levels of punishment from the other parent
1997, p. 280
N ’S R I G H T S 22 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9

Children may also be hit severely. It is all very well using
euphemisms (as
influential politicians like Tony Blair, the former British Prime
Minister
(.HeraldScotland, 1996, "Blair admits to smacking his children:
Concern over
Labour leader’s belief that corporal punishm ent in the home
can be justified")
and Tony Abbott, Australia’s current Prime Minister (Griffiths,
2013)) have cho-
sen to do. Weasel words, like “loving smack” (incidentally an
oxymoron, like
“military intelligence” which told us there were weapons of
mass destruction
in Iraq!) and even “safe smack” (which we know is not the case)
effectively
minimise disciplinary violence and often mislead. In fact, many
parents still
use implements (belts, sticks, wooden spoons, slippers) and
these are not “light
taps”, as is often claimed (see, for example, Lansford et al.
(2012) in the U S ,
Saunders and Goddard, 2010 in Australia, Hester et al. (2009) in
England and
China, and e p o c h 2014 for summaries of research around the
world on the
nature and extent of corporal punishm ent - prevalence and
attitudinal
research). It is notable that Tony Blair has more recently
expressed less toler-
ance for “smacking" children (see Jardine, 2006), and in the U
K , some of this
will now be unlawful, but some will not and, if the truth be told,
it is difficult to

say on which side of the line a particular punishm ent falls. In
Scotland, sec-
tion 51 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 excludes
hitting children on
the head, shaking or punishing with a belt, cane or implement
from “justifiable
assault”. In England and Wales, section 58 of the Children Act
2004 permits the
defence of "reasonable punishment" for a common assault on
the child. The
defence is not available for injuries which cause actual bodily
harm but does
apply when an assault causes “reddening of the skin” or harm
that is deemed
to be “transient” or “trifling” (Crown Prosecution Service,
2009). Physical
assaults on a child that risk but do not cause injury or, at least,
visible injury,
and frequent “trifling” assaults remain defensible. Indeed, the
compromise
reached by the Parliament which will “allow mild smacking,
while barring any
physical punishm ent which causes visible bruising” (Nicholls,
2004) led to calls
for caution that parents might hit children where bruises will
not be obvious
such as on the head; and recognition that the “reform” would be
more protec-
tive of children whose skin is sensitive (Stewart-Brown, 2004).
Other forms of physical punishment, as well as hitting, are also
used. Nobes
and Smith (1997, p. 274) defined three additional categories of
physical punish-
ment: “physical restraint” (being shaken or forced under a cold
shower are

examples); “by example”, pulling a child’s hair when s/he pulls
yours or biting
or pinching; and “ingestion” (washing out a child’s mouth with
soap as a pun-
ishment for being rude or swearing). In Australia, research
revealed that chil-
dren are usually hit with varying intensity and with an open
hand,
but also common were the use of implements, pinching, biting,
shaking and
N ’S R I G H T S 2 2 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9
687
throwing objects at children. More severe forms of punishment,
such as burns
and cuts, were also not uncommonly seen by professionals who
worked with
children (Saunders and Goddard, 2010). Of concern, a Chinese
university stu-
dent in Hester et alls (2009) research, responding to a
questionnaire about her
childhood upbringing, normalised being kicked and slapped -
not even label-
ling this as punishm ent in the context of other children’s more
severe physical
discipline and punishment:
... in my questionnaire, I answered that I did not experience
violence.
I did not mind parents giving a kick or slap on me, which did

not belong to
punishment.
Interview w ith Ling, female Chinese student (2009, p. 408)
W hich Parents Hit Their Children and Why?
The practice of hitting children is passed from one generation to
the next.
A principal reason why parents hit their children is that their
parents hit
them. In the authors’ experience, anecdotal evidence suggests
that up to
two-thirds of British and Australian university students studying
child law
and children’s rights, many coming from distinctly middle-class
back-
grounds, have been corporally punished by parents. None of the
students not
subjected to physical punishm ent intend to use the practice on
their chil-
dren; many of those who were do not dismiss the possibility that
they will hit
their children. (It is refreshing to note that many change their
minds after
the course or after a student placement with statutory child
protection ser-
vices.) Other variables are equally or more significant. Thus,
the frequency
and severity with which parents hit their children is closely
associated with
family and relationship variables, such as the stability of the
parents’ mar
riage and the parents’ m ental health. Socio-economic status is
less signifi-
cant; indeed, the Newsons in the 1960s found that those in

higher social
classes were less likely to threaten, but ju st as likely as other
groups to use an
implem ent to punish, their children.
Parents who hit children may say it “works” (see, for example,
Saunders and
Goddard, 2010). Its frequent use suggests that it does not, and
that this leads to
more severe hitting; the punishm ent escalates. When parents
say it “works”,
what do they mean by this? It brings the behaviour in question
to a halt
(see Gershoff, 2002): but for how long? It re-asserts the
parent’s sense of being
in control. It is good for the parent: it relieves stress; it may
even make them
feel better (Gough and Reavey, 1997). These may be the parents
who hit with
IN TE R N A T IO N A L JO U R N A L OF C H I L D R E N
’S R I G H T S 22 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9
measured calm. Indeed, much corporal punishm ent in schools
may have come
into this category, but it became ritualistic as a result. However,
most parents
hit because they are angry and “lose it”, or because they need to
do something
and cannot think what else to do, and many parents say they
would prefer an
alternative (Saunders and Goddard, 2010).

The Effects of Corporal Punishment on Children
There are considerable research findings w hich show th a t
children who
are hit have more behaviour problems, especially with
aggression, more
em otional and m ental h ealth problems, especially depression,
and the
im pact of physical punishm ent may extend into their adult life
in the form
of violence towards partners and family m embers, anti-social
behaviour
and ongoing m ental health issues (D urrant and Ensom, 2012;
Gershoff,
2002).
An interesting question is which comes first? Do children
behave badly
because they are hit, or is it badly behaved children who get
hit? Important
research by Gunnoe and Mariner (1997), Brezina (1999), and
Straus, Sugarman
and Giles Sims (1997) goes a long way towards unraveling this
question. In the
u s, information related to large, nationally representative
samples of children
was stored on an index of anti-social behaviour (a sb) and the
am ount of phys-
ical punishm ent they had experienced (Time 1). Two years later
(Time 2),
the asb index was repeated. Whatever was the original level of
asb, the higher
the level of physical punishm ent at Time x, the greater the
increase in asb at
Time 2. Children who experienced very little, or no, physical

punishm ent at
time 1 showed no increase or a drop in asb scores. The tendency
was for “physi
cal punishm ent to make things worse”, and this was “regardless
of race, socio-
economic status, gender of child, relationship with parents or
level of
anti-social behavior” (Straus, 1994, p. 197).
What Do Children Think about Corporal Punishment?
This is a question which is n o t often asked. Imagine if we w
anted to know
opinions about dom estic violence, and we only asked men. But
this is
close to w hat the uk Government did. It found considerable
opposition
to removing the parental liberty to inflict corporal chastisem ent
on chil-
dren, b u t it sought to elicit only parents’ views, n o t
children’s first hand
experiences.
N ’S R I G H T S 2 2 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9
6 8 9
Evidence suggests that “smacking” can reinforce cycles of
violent behav-
iour - parents who were smacked as children may be more
likely to smack
their children, unless the cycle is interrupted (Conger et at.,

2003, Scaramella
and Conger., 2003, Lunkenheimer et al., 2006, Saunders and
Goddard, 2010).
Children are increasingly consulted in research around the
world and many
children’s comments suggest that:
... physical punishment - experienced or witnessed - adversely
impacts on
[their] sense of self, reinforces their powerlessness and
vulnerability, and
lowers their perceptions of the adults whom they love and
respect. [It]
hurts them physically and can escalate in severity; arouses
negative emo-
tions, such as resentment, confusion, sadness, hatred,
humiliation, and
anger; creates fear and impedes learning; is not constructive,
children pre-
fer reasoning; and it perpetuates violence as a means of
resolving conflict
... children are sensitive to inequality and double standards, and
children
urge us to respect children and to act responsibly.
SAUNDERS, 2013:298
Some children who have been physically punished readily
endorse it as a rea-
sonable disciplinary response (see, especially, Twum-Danso,
2013) and antici-
pate responding to their own children in the manner in which
they were made
to comply - w hether or not parents’ expectations of their
children were rea-
sonable or ostensibly well-motivated:

I am a hum an being and naturally make a mistake. Humans do
not always
follow rules. So it is necessary to use the whip when they don’t
obey rules
... parents have the right to physically punish their children.
Ethiopian child, save t h e c h il d r e n Sw e d e n , 2007, p.
39
... when I’m older I’d only smack if I’d really need to. If they
did something
really bad ... I’d prob’ly smack them next time they did it. If
they did it
again ... I’ll smack twice as hard: “If you do that again I’ll do
something
worse” ... If you’re a smacking person, and that’s all you do ...
you could
start from a kinda tap and get harder and harder until as hard as
you can.
(8 years, Australia).
SAUNDERS AND GODDARD, 2010, p .ll6
When I have children, I’ll explain their mistakes to them, but if
they don’t
behave I’ll beat them gently on the bottom.
Child in Viet Nam, b e a z l e y e t a l ., 2005, p.162
N ’S R I G H T S 22 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9
6go FREEMAN AND SAUNDERS

At the same time, research that has consulted children around
the world reveals
that many if not most children feel that physical punishment is
“out of place” in
modern childhood. The following selection of children’s
insights is instructive:
There are other ways to solve problems other than hitting and it
doesn’t
do parents or children any good (10 years, Scotland).
ALEXANDRECU, e t al ., 2005:14
Children are our future so they have got to be im p o rta n t...
Parents think
hitting children is sort of their rig h t... I guess parents have
gotta learn to
respect children (13 years, Australia).
SAUNDERS AND GODDARD, 2010, p. 222
[Spanking] doesn’t show him how to do something better; it just
shows
that you have more power over him (9 years, United States).
VITTRUP AND HOLDEN, 2010, p. 2l8
... when I make a mistake and she punishes me I’m not angry
with her
because I know she wants me to be a good child. But I wish all
parents
would stop punishing their children. They should respect
children’s rights
and educate children using nonviolent methods (Cambodian
child).

BEAZLEY E T A L . 2007, p, 190
Is Corporal Punishm ent of Children “Child Abuse”?
Is corporal punishm ent of children child abuse? This depends
upon w hat one
understands as “child abuse”. W hat constitutes abuse is not
self-evident. It is a
social construction. Some define abuse very broadly. David Gil
(1975, p. 347),
for example, defines it as anything which interferes with “the
optimal develop-
m ent” of a child. The National Commission of Inquiry into the
Prevention of
Child Abuse in Britain in 1996, echoing Gil, defined it as:
... anything which individuals, institutions or processes do or
fail to do
which directly or indirectly harms children or damages other
prospects
of safe and healthy development into adulthood.
Others define it more narrowly. David Archard, for example,
confines abuse to
something “serious enough to warrant state intervention” (1993,
p. 128) but this
begs the question: What is serious enough to justify
encroachment upon parents’
N ’S R I G H T S 2 2 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9

6 g i
autonomy in child-rearing? Arguments surrounding definitions
of child abuse
reflect ideological differences, including different
understandings of childhood
and of appropriate child development, and may prove
intractable. The National
Commission’s (1996) definition provided a hostile response: a
government min-
ister responded that social workers needed clear advice about
the indicators of
abuse, not imprecise definitions that risked misinterpretation.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)
In numerous reports, the u n Committee on the Rights of the
Child (see State
parties reports) has criticised governments which have not
outlawed corporal
chastisement within the home (see u n Committee, State parties
reports) and
the following questions, posed 15 years ago, continue to beg
responsible and
humane answers from countries that have ratified the
Convention:
W hat is a “loving” smack? Or a “safe” smack? Is it lawful to
smack babies
or disabled children? Are you to be allowed to hit a child’s
head, or face,
or “box” his ears? And what of his bottom, given the sexual
connotations?
... Is there to be a maximum age? (Can you strike a Gillick
competent
child?) ...Will it be permissible to remove a child’s clothes?

Will an imple-
m ent be totally ruled out? (Odd, isn’t it, that some would
countenance a
punch with a fist or a powerful blow with the hand but rule out
a strap on
the palm of the hand or back of the leg?).
FR EEM A N , 1999:138
The Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989 is clear that
all forms of
violence from a smack to a beating should not be countenanced.
In Article 19,
it requires:
... all States Parties to take all appropriate legislative,
administrative,
social and educational measures to protect the child from all
forms of
physical or mental violence, injury or abuse ...while in the care
of
parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has care of
the child.
CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS O F THE CHILD (1989)
Thus, the Commitee has often said that States’ proposals and
laws that ‘limit
rather than ... remove the “reasonable chastisement” defence do
not comply
with the principles and provisions of the convention’ (see u n
Committee State
parties’ reports). It has recommended that the “reasonable
chastisement

(2014) 681-709
defence” should be removed and public education programmes
should be car-
ried out on the negative consequences of corporal punishment.
Absurd legisla-
tive limitations rather than bans on the corporal punishm ent of
children in all
settings, including the home, include in the Australian state of
New South
Wales where children may be hit below the shoulders as long as
it does not
cause harm lasting more than a short (undefined) period (Crimes
Act 1900
( n s w ) S.61A A ( 2) b), in Canada where a 2004 Supreme
Court ruling stated that
section 43 of the Criminal Code justifies ‘minor corrective force
of a transitory
and trifling nature’, and this prohibits corporal punishm ent of
children less
than two-years old and above 12-years old, and also degrading,
inhuman or
harmful discipline, the use of objects and hitting a child’s head
(Canadian
Foundationfor Children, Youth and the Law v Canada (Attorney
General), and in
the u k , as noted above.
The u n i c e f Report - Women and Children: The Double
Dividend
of Gender Equality

Sentiments expressing disdain at the notion of specifying age
spans, body
parts and acceptable degrees of harm instead of condemning all
forms of vio-
lence against children are echoed in any num ber of other
reports. To take just
one further example, look at the u n i c e f report (2007) on the
State of the
World’s Children, entitled Women and Children: The Double
Dividend o f Gender
Equality, which links child abuse and domestic violence. Two
hundred and
seventy-five million children worldwide are each year caught in
the crossfire of
domestic violence. And there is, the report notes, a strong
correlation between
violence against women and violence against children. The
report stresses that
'shattering the silence that surrounds domestic violence is key
to ending vio-
lent behaviour in the home' ( u n i c e f , 2007, p. 25). It cites
the guiding princi-
ples of the Report of the Independent Expert for the United
Nations Study on
Violence against Children. These are:
• No violence against children is justifiable. Children should
never receive
less protection than adults.
• All violence against children is preventable. States m ust
invest in evidence-
based policies and programmes to address factors that give rise
to violence
against children.

• States have primary responsibility to uphold children’s rights
to protection
and access to services, and to support families’ capacity to
provide children
with care in a safe environment.
N ’S R I G H T S 2 2 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9
CAN W E C O N Q U E R C H I L D ABU SE IF W E D O N
’T OUT LAW 6 9 3
States have the obligation to ensure accountability in every case
of
violence.
The vulnerability of children to violence is linked to their age
and evolving
capacity. Some children, because of gender, race, ethnic origin,
disability or
social status, are particularly vulnerable.
Children have the right to express their views, and to have these
views taken
into account in the implementation of policies and programmes
( u n i c e f ,
2007, p. 25).
The Council of Europe Conference: Building a Europe for
and with Children
The Council of Europe’s conference held in Monaco in April
2006, “Building a
Europe for and with Children”, offered a similar, if more
nuanced, message,
delivered by the European Commissioner for Human Rights of

The Council of
Europe: “We cannot hide behind the right of privacy to justify
corporal punish-
m ent” (Hammarberg, 2006). The report of the conference
stressed that abolish-
ing corporal punishment is a matter of human rights. And it
referred to the
recommendation in 2004 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of
Europe to make Europe “a corporal punishment free zone for
children” (see
Council of Europe, 2005). The report emphasised the
importance of eliminat-
ing all corporal punishment of children since it not only violates
children’s
human rights, it seriously impacts upon children’s health and
development and
thus the whole society. The conclusions from a selected
conference panel
included making an unequivocal ban on all forms of corporal
punishment of
children a “priority target” of the three-year programmes,
“Building a Europe for
and with Children” (see Council of Europe, 2014), and changing
attitudes. They
stressed that banning corporal punishm ent will primarily
motivate changes in
attitudes, not the prosecution of parents (see also Freeman,
1999). They noted
the vital role of the media to disseminate a candid, unambiguous
message that
corporal punishment is not acceptable and that children have a
key role to play
because children’s awareness of their rights enhances their
safety.

The Association betw een Corporal Punishm ent and Child
Abuse
Even if the argument is presented that corporal punishm ent is
not child abuse,
there is a strong association between corporal punishm ent and
abuse. What
ends up as abuse in the majority of cases began as moderate
correction. A 1970
N ’S R I G H T S 2 2 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9
study of all reported cases o f physical abuse in the u s during a
two-year period
found th a t 63 p er ce n t o f cases resulted from “incidents
developing o u t of dis-
ciplinary action taken by caretakers” (Gil, 1970, p. 126). A
2001 study of reported
physical abuse cases in Canada showed th a t 69 p er cent of
substantiated cases
of physical abuse resulted from disciplinary action (Trocme et
at., 2001).
W hen parents use corporal punishm ent, they are likely to have
learned through
previous p atterns o f reinforcem ent th a t the child stops
misbehaving w hen
h it (if th a t was th eir reason for hitting, w hich is n o t always
the case). They
expect positive results from the punishm ent. They may n o t
intend to physi-
cally injure the child (although they certainly intend to inflict

pain since cor-
poral p u n ish m en t w hich does n o t inflict pain has no
point). But heightened
levels o f arousal - anger, protection, stress:
... independently act on the intended degree of physical p u
nishm ent to
produce responses involving a dangerous or injurious level o f
force. W hat
begins as an act of physical discipline thus becom es an act of
interper-
sonal violence.
VASTA, 1982, p .135
Children also becom e habituated to punishm ent. More frequent
or more
severe p u n ish m en t is th en needed to produce the same
effect - stopping the
misbehaviour, inducing compliance, re-asserting parental
authority. Correction
escalates by stages into abuse. The dividing line betw een the
two - if it exists
a t all - soon evaporates. In m ost o f the m ost notorious cases
of child abuse in
Britain and Australia, from M aria Colwell to Victoria Climbie
and ‘Baby Peter’
in Britain, and Daniel Valerio to Cody Hutchings in Australia,
the m ost awful
violence began as “parental discipline”. In contexts w here
physical punishm ent
is norm alised and th en used to excess, it too frequently results
in severe and
fatal abuse particularly o f small children (see, for example,
Nielssen et a/.’s
(2009) research in Australia) b u t older children are also a t

risk. A disturbing
case in Canada in w hich a 13-year old child died after h er
father reportedly
slapped h er ‘twice for n o t doing a chore in the m an n er he
had instructed’ is
recent testam en t to this (cbc News, 2014).
The Causes o f Child A buse
There is no agreem ent - and we will n o t agree - on the
causes of child abuse.
Its putative explanations m irror those for dom estic violence, w
here the femi-
nist interpretation is now becom ing dom inant, an d rightly so.
This gives us
IN T E R N A T IO N A L JO U R N A L O F C H IL D R E N
’S R IG H T S 2 2 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9
6 9 5
confidence that its equivalent in child abuse, the cultural
interpretation, will
eventually emerge as the explanation that all right-thinking
persons (even per-
sons of the “right”) will accept. This is not suggesting that some
child abusers
are not “sick". Of course, they are. Nor is this denying that
socio-environmental
factors, poverty and its multifaceted correlates, help us to
understand some
child abuse. But neither the psycho-pathological model of child
abuse nor the

socio-environmental model accounts for child abuse.
This is not the place to offer a critique of the two models. This
has been done
elsewhere (see, for example, Freeman, 1997,2000a). Gil points
out that that we
should want to think of abusive parents as “sick” may tell us
something about
ourselves. Parents may derive gratification from the sickness-
as-cause inter-
pretation, since it may fill them with a sense of security. For if
abusive behav-
iour were a function of sickness, most parents could view
themselves as free
from the dangers of falling prey to it, since they do not consider
themselves
sick. And advocates of the socio-environmental model concede
that it oper-
ates through an intervening variable, namely stress and
frustration experi-
enced by individuals “in the context of culturally sanctioned use
of physical
force in child rearing” (Gil, 1975, p. 353). Clearly, ‘the line
between legitimate
corporal punishm ent and child abuse is, at best, fuzzy’, and
‘those who skate on
thin ice cannot expect a sign to alert them to the exact point
where the ice will
cave in’ (Freeman, 1994:21,23). Sanctioned physical punishm
ent places all chil-
dren at risk of physical and emotional harm which arguably is in
effect child
abuse given that children do not have a say in this - children
are both vulner-
able and powerless.

Culture and Corporal Punishm ent
We have to situate child abuse within culture. An understanding
of abuse
requires an understanding of power. Sexual abuse of children -
and some cor-
poral punishment is unquestionably sexual abuse - is largely
male abuse of
power. The physical abuse of children too can be explained in
terms of power
and our definitions of children as objects rather than rights-
holding persons
(see Saunders and Goddard, 2001). Nearly 40 years ago, David
Gil sought the
aetiology of child abuse in: “society’s basic social philosophy,
its dominant
value premises, its concept of humans, its nature of the social,
economic and
political institutions” (1975, p. 350). Violence is, of course,
common in asym-
metric relationships (master and slave, male-female
relationships). And physi-
cal force has been used for disciplinary purposes in all such
contexts. It was
once used in the armed services, against apprentices and
prisoners. It is still
N ’S RI G H T S 22 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9
6 96 F R E E M A N AN D SAU NDE RS
used as a disciplinary measure in a num ber of penal systems
(many in Asia)

(see End All Corporal Punishment of Children e p o c h , 2014).
But nowhere is
this clearer than in the relationship of adults to children; and we
do not need
to limit ourselves to the rather obvious fact that physical
punishm ent of chil-
dren is, in most countries, culturally acceptable.
To understand violence against children, or child abuse more
generally, it is
important to examine our concept of childhood, to look at social
policies
which sustain different levels of rights for children. We may no
longer sub-
scribe to notions of children as property, but the legacies of
such an ideology
remain firmly implanted within our consciousness. We can all
find examples
of this in our own countries. Indeed, Mia Kellmer-Pringle’s
wish that we prog-
ress beyond the stage when we believe that “a baby completes a
family, rather
like a tv set or fridge” (1975, pp. 69-70) constantly comes to
mind. Writing in
1972, she described uk society as “adult-orientated and not
child-centred", and
this was, she said, "clearly reflected in our laws” (Kellmer-
Pringle, 1972, p. 174).
Sad it is to report but the household wish list may have
changed, but our atti-
tudes to children have not. This is well illustrated by reference
to a case - one
which is coincidentally - because there are many which are not
- about corpo-
ral punishment. It is the Wiltiamson case of 2005. This uk case
was brought by

fundamentalist Christian parents (and teachers at fundamentalist
Christian
schools). They claimed that education legislation prohibiting
corporal punish-
m ent in schools - and it took the uk until 1998 finally to rid
itself of this -
infringed their right to manifest their religion and to educate
their children in
conformity with their own religious convictions. It took
Baroness Hale (in the
House of Lords) to point out the obvious - although it escaped
the attention of
all the other judges - that:
... this is, and always, has been, a case about children, their
rights and the
rights of their parents and teachers. Yet there has been no one
here or in
the courts below to speak on behalf of the children. No
litigation friend
has been appointed to consider the rights of the pupils involved
sepa-
rately from those of the adults ...The battle has been fought on
ground
selected by the adults (in Regina v. Secretary o f State fo r
Education and
Employment and others (Respondents), ex parte Williamson
(Appellant)
and others, decision of 24 February 2005, United Kingdom,
[2005].
u k h l 15, p ar a. 71.
She offered her judgm ent “for the sake of the children”. Her
conclusion was
the same as the other judges. The European Convention on

Human Rights did
protect the parents’ belief that their children should be exposed
to corporal
N ’S R I G H T S 2 2 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9
6 9 7
pun ish m en t a t school - we take it for granted th at these
children were so
exposed at hom e - and education legislation did indeed
infringe this right, b u t
the interference was justified (also by the Convention).
Baroness Hale explained:
... if a child has th e right to be brought up w ith o u t
institutional violence,
as he does, th a t right should be respected w h e th e r or n o t
his p arents and
teachers believe otherwise, (in Regina v. Secretary o f State f o
r Education
and Employm ent and others (Respondents), ex parte
Williamson
(.Appellant) and others, decision of 24 February 2005, United
Kingdom,
[2005].
u k h l 15, p ar a. 86
W hy Rights for C hildren are Right?
Baroness Hale’s ju d g m en t is a forceful affirmation of the

integrity of children,
a clear articulation of children as persons w ho are rights-
holders. It is n o t the
only such statem en t by a judge. We should rem ind ourselves o
f w h at American
judges were saying in the 1960s in cases like Gault and Tinker,
and o f the famous
Gillick p ro n o u n cem en t in the English House o f Lords in
1985, and there are
others (in the Angela Roddy case and in Axon). Im plicit is an
exhortation to
take children’s rights seriously. Doing so may obstruct w h at
adults want: this
seems to be M artin Guggenheim’s reservation in his book, W
hat’s Wrong with
Children’s Rights (2005). But then rights always have been a
nuisance. Surely,
th a t is why we have had to fight for them . Of course, for the
powerful - and, for
children, adults are always powerful - rights are an
inconvenience. The power-
ful would find it m uch easier if those below them lacked
rights. It would be
easier to rule, decision-m aking would be swifter, cheaper, m
ore efficient and
m ore certain. This applies across the board, and certainly as far
as children are
concerned. W h at children long lacked was the right to possess
rights. They
lived in a condition of com plete rightlessness. The turning po
in t has come
w ith the international com m unity’s recognition of children’s
rights in the
Convention o f 1989.
A key provision in this is Article 12, w hich emphasises

children as participants
in the social process. Children are n o t ju s t to be acted upon;
they are agents,
decision-makers, people who negotiate w ith others, who alter
relationships or
decisions, who can shift social assumptions and constraints.
And Priscilla
Alderson and h er colleagues have dem onstrated th a t even
very young children
can do this (Alderson, 2000; Alderson, Hawthorne and Killen,
2005). Participation
can enable children to uphold their rights. It can also enhance
their skills,
I N T E R N A T IO N A L JO U R N A L OF C H I L D R E N
’S RI G H T S 22 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9
6 g 8 FREEMAN AND SAUNDERS
empower and enhance self-esteem. Nor should it be forgotten
that it can also
protect children: a rightless child is more readily exposed to
abuse and neglect.
Beyond “Anti-Smacking” - The Importance of Participation
Giving children participatory rights - and this would include
giving children
the right to vote - is also good for democracy; for participation
is also about
citizenship. What this shows is that, as Phillips and Alderson so
astutely
observed, we must get “beyond ‘anti-smacking’” (2003). What
most under-

mines children’s protection is:
... a cultural system that constructs children as human
becomings rather
than human beings, and a power system that upholds “parents’
rights”
over children’s human rights.
P H IL L IP S A N D A LD E R SO N , 2 0 0 2
Are children hum an beings? Certainly, the image projected by
the Convention
is of the child as, of course, vulnerable and in need of
protection, but also as an
active, developing hum an being with evolving capacities, a
person entitled to
respect for his/her hum an dignity as an autonomous hum an
being. However,
even those who advocate an end to the corporal punishm ent of
children have
used language which is disrespectful and discriminatory.
Language contributes
to the disempowerment and silencing of people denied
recognition of their
hum an rights; language also motivates positive changes in
attitudes and behav-
iours, recognising, and uplifting the status of people entitled to
inclusion and
integrity (see Saunders and Goddard, 2001).
Phillips and Alderson well illustrate inappropriate language use
when dis-
cussing a 1989 epoch leaflet. They contend that "[a] leaflet on
discouraging
men from hitting their partners would never use such language
about women”

(2003, p. 284). Try it out: epoch told parents (admittedly in
1989) that “we all
know how maddening it can be to try to finish a chore against a
child’s whin
ing” (epoch, 1989, p. 5, cited in Phillips and Alderson, 2003 p.
284). Substitute
“wife” for child - it is doubtful that you would find this in any
anti-domestic
violence campaign literature. We need positive anti-smacking
literature. We
need children’s views, and not just on smacking but on, amongst
others, power,
coercion, support, communication and autonomy. If one asked
what percent-
age of people in a country favoured the “smacking” of children,
one would
almost certainly be told the percentage of adults, because
children would not
be counted in “people”. This may be thought particularly
incongruous since
children are the persons who are “smacked”.
N ’S R I G H T S 22 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9
6 9 9
One consequence of treating children as “hum an beings" rather
than as
“hum an becomings” is that communication will replace
coercion. A child with
whom one has a dialogue is more likely to appreciate the value
of language and

of communication: a child who is hit will learn that violence is
a solution to
problems (it is not, of course) and that it is used in asymmetric
power relation-
ships - so against smaller children, for example. It is surely not
surprising
that the cognitive abilities of children who are not “smacked"
exceed those of
their peers who have been “smacked” (Straus and Paschall,
2009, MacKenzie,
Nicklas, Waldfogel and Brooks-Gunn, 2012).
Should we fear the Abolition of “Smacking”?
Another consequence is that even when “smacking” is
eliminated - it will cer-
tainly diminish with legal bans - violence will continue, as
Coppock puts it,
through: ‘the power of adults, as parents and professionals, to
define the oppo-
sitional behaviour of children and young persons as “illness”
and “disorder”’
(2002:140). Drugs (Ritalin, for example), curfews, anti-social
behaviour orders,
show that physical punishment is part of:
... a domineering, non-communicative attitude towards the
child, one
which disregards the child’s opinions and views, leaves the
child outside
the realm of understanding and logic (Judith Karp, Vice chair of
the u n
Committee on the Rights of the Child, 1999, cited in.
PHILLIPS AND ALDERSON, 2 0 0 3 : 1 8 3

The defeat of smacking requires a reassessment of these
attitudes, and policies
too “because children are persons, not property; subjects, not
objects of social
concern or control; participants in social processes, not social
problems”
(Freeman, 1998:436). As Phillips and Alderson point out,
‘replacing smacking
with respect, instead of with new enforcements, requires that
children are rec-
ognised as social subjects and not simply as the objects of adult
projects’
(2003:183).
The power system also needs to be challenged. There is too
much emphasis
on parents’ rights, on their autonomy, on the privacy of the
“family” (that is of
the adults) and, as noted above, the outdated but still lingering
concept of ‘the
child as property rather than person’ (Freeman, 1983). Bill
Jordan put the
dilemma perfectly when he wrote that:
... the case against intervention in family life often rests on the
freedom
of more powerful members (usually husbands in relation to
wives and
N ’S R I G H T S 22 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9
7 00 FREEMAN AND SAUNDERS

parents in relation to children) to exercise their pow er w ith o u
t restric-
tion (1976, p. 60).
Goldstein, Freud and Solnit in their influential writings bestow
little m ore than
one right on the child, the “entitlem ent to autonom ous parents”
(1973:90, see also
Goldstein et al., 1979). It is all about “family integrity” (see
Freeman, 1997, for a
detailed critique o f Goldstein et alls stance on this concept).
Behind parents’
rights are parents’ powers. This is - it certainly was - the case
with husbands’
rights. Thus, Bell and Newby wrote of the power th at husbands
had: “the power of
the hand and the power of the purse” (1976:164). It is of note th
at one of the early
feminists (in the m odem manifestation o f feminism) had the
foresight to realise
th a t they had to challenge the oppression o f children as well
as th at of women:
... or we will be subject to the sam e failing of w hich we have
so often
accused m en ... of having m issed an im portant substratum of
oppression
m erely because it didn’t directly concern us.
f ir e s t o n e , 1970, p.118, italics in original
But today, “m any feminists appear resolved to the parentalism
th a t Firestone
w arned against” (Phillips and Alderson, 2003:185). And so do
many children’s
activists w ho concentrate th eir attention on children’s issues

outside the home.
Of course, these issues are im portant, b u t there m ust be
increased focus on the
family if th e status o f children is to improve.
But, it is often said, to rid ourselves of corporal p u nishm ent is
to open a can
of worms. There is a concern th a t banning the hitting o f
children will lead to
greater intervention into the family, to more prosecutions o f
parents, to more
children going into state care. But this is n o t the experience o
f countries w hich
have ban n ed the hitting of children. Outlawing corporal p u n
ish m en t is more
likely to lead to fewer prosecutions, because there will be less
abuse, to fewer
proceedings to remove children from parents, and also to less
delinquency and
violent crime and thus a reduction in the prison population,
because corporal
p u n ish m en t teaches violence and the victims of today may
becom e tom or-
row ’s violent crim inals (Gershoff, 2002; Straus an d Yodanis,
1996). In Sweden
(see Durrant, 1999; 2000; Janson, Langberg an d Svensson,
2011), in the five years
before the smacking ban, five children died at their p aren ts’
hands in “disci
plinary" incidents; in the following 20 years, only one child
suffered a similar
fate. Since banning smacking, rates o f yo u th crime in Sweden
have rem ained
“steady” or declined, and rates of youth suicides have declined.
The reporting
of parental assaults on children has gone up, b u t prosecution

rates have not
increased and social work intervention into families has
declined.
(2014) 681-709
701
And so banning corporal punishment could easily be justified on
utilitarian
grounds. But even were it to be effective, it could not be
justified on moral
grounds. There is no case. However it is dressed up - as a
demonstration of
love, for example - it is morally wrong. It is discriminatory: we
do not justify
assaults on anyone else. Of course, we once did - husbands
could chastise
wives, and masters could punish servants, for example. The
physical punish-
m ent of children undermines their fundamental rights to respect
for human
dignity and physical integrity. Many states now have zero
tolerance towards
domestic violence, including England and Wales and Australia,
which have
explicitly ruled out banning the hitting of children. These
countries are con-
cerned that a ban would fly in the face of public opinion but so
did abolishing
capital punishment, decriminalising homosexual acts and
outlawing racial

discrimination. Governments are there to lead, not slavishly
follow. Law can be
used for social engineering, though not in isolation from other
policies. Law
can change attitudes, as well as behaviour. The goal of
legislation in countries
which have implemented a ban is education of parents, rather
than the subjec-
tion of parents to penal sanctions. And, of course, law reform
would facilitate
the improvement of children's lives and eventually the
elimination of abuse.
But the world is slow to respond. As noted above, England and
Wales, Canada
and the state of New South Wales, Australia, have put in place
nonsensical com-
promises which allow children to be hit but only to a degree.
Such “solutions” are
not appealing to anyone concerned about children’s rights or
best interests. The
reform in England and Wales followed the most disgraceful of
consultation exer-
cises which ruled out respondents advocating the Swedish
model. Forty coun-
tries have now banned parental hitting of children. The Supreme
Court in one
(Norway) back-tracked, so that for a while in Norway “lighter
smacks” appeared
to be permitted but the Government reviewed and legislatively
amended this
interpretation. The population in New Zealand reacted
unfavourably to the 2007
reform, and a small (but vocal) section of the population
unsuccessfully called
for the ban to be repealed: a now most unlikely but still possible

event.
Asia’s Reluctance to Ban Hitting Children
In an ideal childhood, discipline is consistent and empathetic;
physical punish-
m ent is not considered - talking replaces hitting, and
tolerance, understanding,
gentle persuasion and negotiation, replace violent coercion
(Saunders,
2013:299). W ith the exception of Israel, the only ‘democratic
country’ in the
Middle East, and Turkmenistan, which have outlawed parental
hitting, there
are few moves in Asia. Indeed, Nelson and colleagues, focusing
particularly on
(2014) 681-709
Thailand’s steadfast comm itm ent to corporal punishm ent in
the home, out-
lines “cultural, political, economic, religious and global
challenges” that
Thailand and other, particularly Asian countries, face in
endeavours to ban
violence against children, in all its forms and settings (2009, p.
17). There is no
hint of this happening in Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the uae,
Palestine (though
in Yemen it is prohibited in schools). Otherwise, it is allowed in
China, Japan,

Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Viet Nam,
Cambodia and, it would
seem, the rest of Asia. There is some commitment to prohibition
made by a
num ber of countries at the July 2006 meeting of the South Asia
Forum, follow-
ing regional consultation of un Secretary General’s Study on
Violence Against
Children, for example by Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
However, in
2014, prohibition in these countries is yet to occur. Bangladesh
appears to
remain committed, as its recent involvement of the Ministry of
Women and
Children Affairs in South Asia Initiative to End Violence
Against Children
(saievac) activities suggests (epoch, 2014). In Taiwan, the
government
stated its comm itm ent to prohibition in August 2005, but
corporal punish-
m ent is still not prohibited in the home (epoch, 2014). In the
Philippines,
various Bills have been filed but as noted on the epoch website
in 2014:
In reporting to the Universal Periodic Review in 2012, the
Government
included Bill No. hb 4455 ‘on the promotion of positive
discipline in lieu
of corporal punishm ent’ in a list of ‘priority bills’ in the House
of
Representatives (19 March 2012, a/hrc/wg.6/i3/phl/i, National
report
to the upr, para. 82); as at April 2013 its counterpart Bill No.
SB 873 is still
pending in the Senate. Also pending in the Senate are Bill No.

SB 1597
which would amend the Family Code to prohibit all corporal
punishm ent
and Bill No. 1107 which would amend the Special Protection of
Children
Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act. (Republic
Act 7610
1992) to prohibit all corporal punishment.
In 2009, in Mongolia, the Criminal Code was being revised and
there have been
plans to revise the Law on the Protection of the Rights of the
Child and to
amend the Family Law to prohibit corporal punishm ent but
progress is still
pending (epoch, 2014).
Conclusion
We will not conquer child abuse if we do not outlaw physical
punishment. Even
when physical punishment does not result in injuries commonly
perceived to
N ’S R I G H T S 22 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9
7 0 3
be abusive, research now convincingly suggests that
disregarding the risks that
physical punishment in childhood pose to children’s well-being
and optimal

development into adulthood arguably amounts to child abuse
(see, in particu-
lar, Gershoff, 2013).
If child abuse is to be tackled more successfully, there must be
a new vision
of childhood. A conception of childhood must be developed
which acknowl-
edges the personality and integrity of children ... To protect
children one
must also protect their rights ... Children must be seen as
individuals, not
merely as "assets" or even subsumed within a family and its
interests.
FREEMAN, 1994:93
Promisingly, in Hester et alls research, 73 per cent of 498
Chinese university
students proposed “better communication between parents and
children” as
“key” to reducing the use of physical punishment, and some
students sug-
gested that physical punishm ent is no longer acceptable:
No m atter what they have done, beating children, in my
opinion, should
belong to domestic violence [identified as criminal behaviour in
the
Chinese 2001 Marriage Act (Marriage Law 2001)]. I hope that
parents do
not beat their children. They should be modest and unassuming
and
communicate with their children. (Interview with Li, young
female
Chinese student) (2009:411).

We contend that the corporal punishment of children will be
banned in Asia,
as elsewhere. Parents and others responsible for children’s care
and protection
will be persuaded to stop habitually “hitting children because it
is wrong ... as
it is wrong to hit adults ... The twenty-first century must
consign it to history”
(Freeman, 1999:139). And when physical chastisement is
outlawed, we will
have nailed a further nail in the coffin of child abuse, and we
will have finally
advanced the status of children.
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N ’S R I G H T S 22 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 6 8 1 - 7 0 9
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Universal Mandatory Reporting Policies and the
Odds of Identifying Child Physical Abuse
Grace W. K. Ho, PhD, RN, Deborah A. Gross, DNSc, RN, and
Amie Bettencourt, PhD
Objectives. To examine the relationships between universal
mandatory reporting
(UMR), child physical abuse reporting, and the moderating
effect of UMR on physical
abuse report outcomes by report source.

Methods. We used a national data set of 204 414 children
reported for physical abuse
in 2013 to compare rates of total and confirmed reports by
states or territories with and
without UMR. We estimated odds and predicted probabilities of
confirming a physical
abuse report made by professional versus nonprofessional
reporters, accounting for the
moderating effect of UMR and individual-level characteristics.
Results. Rates of total and confirmed physical abuse reports did
not differ by UMR
status. Nonprofessionals were more likely to make reports in
UMR states compared with
states without UMR. Probability of making a confirmed report
was significantly lower
under UMR; this effect almost doubled for nonprofessionals
compared with professional
reporters.
Conclusions. Universal mandatory reporting may not be the
answer for strength-
ening the protection of children victimized by physical abuse.
Implementation of child
protection policies must be exercised according to evidence to

exert the fullest impact
and benefit of these laws. (Am J Public Health. 2017;107:709–
716. doi:10.2105/
AJPH.2017.303667)
An estimated 1 in 4 children living in theUnited States
experience some form
of maltreatment during their lifetime.1 In
2014, more than 6.6 million children and
their families were reported to Child Pro-
tective Services for allegations of child mal-
treatment.2 Among them, approximately
3.2 million were screened-in by child pro-
tection agencies, and 702 000 children were
found to be victims.2 Children who are
maltreated have significantly poorer mental
and physical health outcomes compared with
the general child population.3 These health
effects are enduring, affecting children’s
mental, physical, and behavioral well-being
well into adulthood.4–6 The economic con-
sequences of child maltreatment are also
substantial. These include greater use of child
welfare services, higher health and mental
health utilization rates, poorer academic
outcomes and work productivity, increased
risk for violence as both perpetrator and
victim, and reduced quality of life and life
expectancy.7 A recent economic evaluation
estimated that the average per-victim lifetime
cost of child maltreatment in the United
States was $210 012 for nonfatal maltreatment
and $1 272 900 for fatal maltreatment.8 Given

the pervasiveness of child maltreatment, its
toll on human suffering, and the enormous
costs to children, families, and society,
understanding how best to protect children
from maltreatment is a critical public
health issue.
Laws and structures that promote child
maltreatment reporting form an important
tertiary public health approach to help protect
abused and neglected children.9 Despite large
variations in mandatory reporting legislations
across jurisdictions in the United States,10 all
states currently require professionals working
with children to report child maltreatment.
These professional groups include health care
providers, law enforcement personnel, social
service personnel, teachers, childcare pro-
viders, and mental health clinicians. In 2014,
these professional reporters initiated more
than three fifths of all maltreatment reports.2
They are also more likely to make confirmed
maltreatment reports compared with non-
professionals.11 Since these mandatory
reporting laws were implemented, a signifi-
cant decrease in annual child deaths and
substantial increases in the number of total
and confirmed maltreatment reports have
been observed.12,13
However, the adequacy of child mal-
treatment reporting laws remains contro-
versial, especially following high-profile child
abuse cases.14 Some policymakers have pe-

titioned for universal mandatory reporting
(UMR), under which all citizens are legally
required to initiate a report when they have
reason to suspect child maltreatment. As of
2015, 18 states and Puerto Rico have in-
stituted UMR laws,15 but the evidence of
these laws’ overall benefit remains in-
conclusive. For example, UMR has only
been associated with higher rates of con-
firmed neglect, but not of confirmed physical
abuse.16,17 One study18 compared changes
in child maltreatment reporting and victim-
ization rates between 2000 and 2010 and
found that the rate of children reported for
physical abuse increased significantly under
UMR, but the rate of children identified
as victims of physical abuse remained
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Grace W. K. Ho is with the School of Nursing, The Hong Kong
Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. Deborah A. Gross is with
the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD. Amie
Bettencourt is with the Fund for Educational Excellence,
Baltimore,
and Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.
Correspondence should be sent to Grace W. K. Ho, RN, PhD,
School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
Hung
Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong (e-mail: [email protected]).
Reprints can be ordered at http://www.ajph.org by clicking the
“Reprints” link.
This article was accepted January 11, 2017.
doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2017.303667

May 2017, Vol 107, No. 5 AJPH Ho et al. Peer Reviewed
Research 709
AJPH RESEARCH
mailto:[email protected]
http://www.ajph.org
unchanged. These data suggest that, although
UMR may lead to more reports being made
over time, it has not been effective for
detecting certain forms of maltreatment, such
as physical abuse.
Child physical abuse is a particularly lethal
form of maltreatment. Alone or in con-
junction with neglect, physical abuse con-
tributes to the majority of child maltreatment
fatalities in the United States.2 In fact, man-
datory reporting laws were originally
designed to help identify children victimized
by physical abuse.14 However, without clear
signs of intentional injury, physical abuse
reports are inherently difficult to sub-
stantiate.11 Among professional reporters, less
than 14% of physical abuse reports are con-
firmed and among nonprofessional reporters,
less than 10% of physical abuse reports are
confirmed (Grace W. K. Ho, written com-
munication, December 2016). Non-
professional reporters assume a comparatively
smaller share of child maltreatment reporting,
contributing only 37% of all maltreatment
reports and only 16% of physical abuse reports
(Grace W. K. Ho, written communication,

December 2016).2 The goal of UMR policies
is to improve child maltreatment identifica-
tion rates, particularly child physical abuse
identification rates, by promoting child
protection as a shared social responsibility
and increasing the pool of mandated re-
porters.14,19 However, it is unclear whether
they have in fact achieved this goal. Of the
few studies that have examined the effect of
UMR, most have used aggregate data re-
ported at the county or state level,16–18 and
we found no published studies on how UMR
may have an impact on the outcomes of child
physical abuse reports at the individual report
level.
Investigating the impact of UMR at the
individual level has several advantages. First, it
allows us to control for a range of individual
and family characteristics associated with
greater child physical abuse risk (e.g., child
age, gender, socioeconomic risks). Second,
we can examine how UMR affects the
outcomes of physical abuse reports when
initiated by nonprofessional reporters, the
focus of UMR policies. For example, does
a physical abuse report made voluntarily by
a nonprofessional have a different outcome
than a report made by a nonprofessional
under a legal mandate? Finally, it allows us to
understand whether UMR affects the rate of
physical abuse reporting among professionally
mandated reporters. For example, are pro-
fessionally mandated reporters less likely to
initiate reports if nonprofessionals, who are

presumably less knowledgeable about child
physical abuse, are also mandated to report?
Answering these questions is critical for
making informed and evidence-based de-
cisions on whether and how UMR should be
implemented.
In this secondary analysis of data on child
physical abuse reports made in federal fiscal
year 2013, we examined the impact of UMR
on total and confirmed reports of physical
abuse. As the intent of UMR is to increase
reporting among nonprofessionals, we first
examined whether rates of total and con-
firmed physical abuse reports differed by
UMR status. Then we described and com-
pared characteristics of reports made in states
or territories with and without UMR. Lastly,
we estimated the odds and predicted proba-
bilities of confirming a physical abuse report
made by a professional versus a nonprofes-
sional reporter, accounting for differing ef-
fects of UMR on reporter type. On the
basis of evidence that child and caregiver
characteristics can influence child physical
abuse reports and confirmation, we controlled
for a range of individual-level characteristics in
the analyses.
METHODS
We obtained data from the National Data
Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect. We
used the National Child Abuse and Neglect
Data System (NCANDS) Child File for 2013,
and our final sample consisted of all child

maltreatment reports that (1) had a sole al-
legation of child physical abuse, (2) had
a known report source, (3) pertained to a child
aged from birth to 17 years, and (4) received
a response (i.e., investigation or assessment)
and a report disposition from Child Protective
Services. To examine UMR effects on child
physical abuse only, children in reports that
involved more than 1 child must all have sole
allegations of physical abuse to be included.
This avoids including children in reports that
may have been initiated based on allegations
of other maltreatment types. We used the
most recent report if a child had multiple
physical abuse reports in 2013. We excluded
reports that were initiated by the alleged
perpetrator or resulted in child fatality.
The final sample included 204 414 unique
children from 43 states, the District of Co-
lumbia, and Puerto Rico. One state did not
submit data on report source (OR)and 6 states
did not submit data to NCANDS in 2013 (ID,
MD, NC, OH, OK, VA).
Study Measures
The primary outcome of interest was
recorded case disposition following a child
physical abuse report. In this analysis, we
dichotomized these dispositions into con-
firmed and unconfirmed physical abuse re-
ports as defined by NCANDS.2 Confirmed
reports are defined as those cases that received
a response by a child protective service agency

and had sufficient evidence under state law or
policy to conclude or suspect the child was
a victim of maltreatment. Confirmed cases
may receive 1 of 3 case dispositions: sub-
stantiated (i.e., allegation of maltreatment
supported or founded under state law or
policy), indicated (i.e., allegation of mal-
treatment could not be substantiated under
state law or policy, but there was reason to
suspect that the child was maltreated), or al-
ternative response victim (i.e., there was
sufficient evidence to warrant child protective
agency or the courts to require the family to
receive services and monitoring). All other
disposition categories (e.g., unsubstantiated,
intentionally false, and closed without find-
ing) implied that the maltreatment allegation
was not confirmed and that there was no
evidence to support or suspect that the child
was abused.
There were 10 known report sources,
excluding alleged perpetrators, in the
NCANDS data set. They were divided into 2
reporter types—professionals (i.e., health care
provider, mental health personnel, social
services, legal or law enforcement, educa-
tional personnel, and childcare provider) and
nonprofessionals (i.e., alleged victim, parent,
other relative, and friend or neighbor). Pro-
fessionals are those who regularly interface
with children as part of their occupation and
are mandated across all states and territories to
report suspected child maltreatment. Non-
professionals, depending on the laws and
policies within the state or territory in which

AJPH RESEARCH
710 Research Peer Reviewed Ho et al. AJPH May 2017, Vol
107, No. 5
they reside, may be permitted (i.e., voluntary
and without being legally required to do
so) or mandated under UMR to report sus-
pected maltreatment. Of the 45 states and
territories included in this analysis, 15 had
UMR in place in 2013 (DE, FL, IN, KY,
MS, NE, NH, NJ, NM, RI, TN, TX,
UT, WY, and Puerto Rico).20 This infor-
mation was added into the original
NCANDS data set.
We included 10 child and caregiver
characteristics associated with likelihood of
report substantiation21 as covariates. Child
characteristics included age, gender, race/
ethnicity, and having a history of previous
victimization. All caregiver risk factors were
dichotomous variables that indicated whether
the caregiver had a known history of domestic
violence, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, in-
adequate housing, financial problem, or re-
ceipt of public assistance. This information
was available as part of the NCANDS data set.
Data Analysis
We analyzed data with Stata SE version

14.1 (StataCorp LP, College Station, TX).
We used descriptive statistics to summarize
the characteristics of child physical abuse re-
ports, report confirmation, and report and
victimization rates per 10 000 children by US
state or territory. We calculated report and
victimization rates by number of total or
confirmed reports over child population in
2013.22 We calculated correlation between
report and victimization rates by using
Spearman’s r; we also compared these rates
between states and territories with and
without UMR by using the Mann–Whitney
U test. We assessed descriptive statistics and
bivariate relations between UMR status and
child, caregiver, and report characteristics
with t test and c2.
We conducted hierarchical logistic re-
gression analyses by using reporter type,
UMR status, and child and caregiver char-
acteristics to predict confirmed victimization,
with 4 steps of variable entry. In step 1, we
entered the control variables (i.e., child and
caregiver characteristics) into the regression
equation. In step 2, we added the first pre-
dictor variable (i.e., reporter type). In step 3,
we added the second variable (UMR status).
In step 4, we entered the interaction of re-
porter type x UMR status. Lastly, we cal-
culated mean predicted probabilities and
average marginal effects (AMEs) for each level
of the interaction between reporter type and
UMR status. We set a at 0.05 for all analyses.
RESULTS

The overall child physical abuse report and
victimization rates per 10 000 children were
TABLE 1—Investigated and Confirmed Reports of Child
Physical Abuse by State or Territory:
National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System Child File,
United States, 2013
State or Territory
All
Reports,
No.
Report Ratea
(per 10 000
Children)
Unconfirmed,
No. (%)
Confirmed,
No. (%)
Victimization Rateb
(per 10 000
Children)
Without UMR (n= 30)
Alabama 9 775 87.95 6 732 (68.87) 3 043 (31.13) 27.38
Alaska 604 32.11 487 (80.63) 117 (19.37) 6.22

Arizona 2 103 13.01 1 948 (92.63) 155 (7.37) 0.96
Arkansas 2 590 36.49 2 193 (84.67) 397 (15.33) 5.59
California 15 710 17.12 14 660 (93.32) 1 050 (6.68) 1.14
Colorado 4 147 33.50 3 524 (84.98) 623 (15.02) 5.03
Connecticut 1 786 22.73 1 668 (93.39) 118 (6.61) 1.50
District of
Columbia
644 57.77 588 (91.30) 56 (8.70) 5.02
Georgia 1 857 7.46 1 535 (82.66) 322 (17.34) 1.29
Hawaii 240 7.81 174 (72.50) 66 (27.50) 2.15
Illinois 7 649 25.30 6 100 (79.75) 1 549 (20.25) 5.12
Iowa 2 952 40.77 2 319 (78.56) 633 (21.44) 8.74
Kansas 4 758 65.71 4 546 (95.54) 212 (4.46) 2.93
Louisiana 3 114 27.98 2 332 (74.89) 782 (25.11) 7.03
Maine 258 9.87 209 (81.01) 49 (18.99) 1.87
Massachusetts 1 788 12.83 1 358 (75.95) 430 (24.05) 3.08
Michigan 17 390 77.45 15 735 (90.48) 1 655 (9.52) 7.37
Minnesota 5 014 39.20 4 561 (90.97) 453 (9.03) 3.54

Missouri 130 0.93 38 (29.23) 92 (70.77) 0.66
Montana 303 13.53 264 (87.13) 39 (12.87) 1.74
Nevada 2 941 44.45 2 230 (75.82) 711 (24.18) 10.75
New York 1 170 2.76 949 (81.11) 221 (18.89) 0.52
North Dakota 552 33.93 502 (90.94) 50 (9.06) 3.07
Pennsylvania 15 190 55.93 14 412 (94.88) 778 (5.12) 2.86
South Carolina 2 787 25.81 1 293 (46.39) 1 494 (53.61) 13.85
South Dakota 440 21.16 388 (88.18) 52 (11.82) 2.50
Vermont 1 965 160.14 1 744 (88.75) 221 (11.25) 18.01
Washington 5 248 32.89 4 669 (88.97) 579 (11.03) 3.63
West Virginia 1 716 44.96 1 419 (82.69) 297 (17.31) 7.78
Wisconsin 5 970 45.65 5 468 (91.59) 502 (8.41) 3.84
With UMR (n = 15)
Delaware 2 518 123.70 2 434 (96.66) 84 (3.34) 4.13
Florida 8 190 20.34 7 482 (91.36) 708 (8.64) 1.76
Indiana 8 569 54.03 7 984 (93.17) 585 (6.83) 3.69
Kentucky 5 168 50.97 4 592 (88.85) 576 (11.15) 5.68
Mississippi 1 756 23.81 1 303 (74.20) 453 (25.80) 6.14

Nebraska 502 10.81 403 (80.28) 99 (19.72) 2.13
New Hampshire 942 34.74 925 (98.20) 17 (1.80) 0.63
New Jersey 10 937 54.09 10 340 (94.54) 597 (5.46) 2.95
Continued
AJPH RESEARCH
May 2017, Vol 107, No. 5 AJPH Ho et al. Peer Reviewed
Research 711
31.93 and 4.16, respectively (Table 1). There
was a significant correlation between report
and victimization rates among states and
territories; higher reporting rates were asso-
ciated with higher confirmed victimization
rates (rs = 0.54; P < .001). However, states and
territories with and without UMR did not
differ in their rates of physical abuse reports
(U = 279; P = .19) or confirmed victimization
(U = 232; P = .87). Among the top-10 states
or territories with the highest report rate, 4
had UMR in place (DE, NJ, UT, and WY).
Among the top-10 states or territories with
the highest victimization rate, only 2 had
UMR in place (RI and UT).
Report Characteristics by Universal
Mandatory Reporting Status
Of all child physical abuse reports

(n =204414), only 13.04% were confirmed.
Among confirmed cases, 16.25% were made by
nonprofessional reporters and 83.75% were
made by professional reporters (Table 2).
Physical abuse reports made in UMR states and
territories were less likely to be confirmed
compared with those made in non-UMR states
and territories (11.86% vs 13.86%; c2 =175;
P< .001). Nonprofessionals were more likely to
make reports in UMR states or territories
compared with states and territories without
UMR (19.51% vs 14.00%; c2 =1100;
P< .001).ReportsourcesalsodifferedbyUMR
status (c2 =3300; P< .001). Higher proportions
of reports were made by nonprofessional re-
porters across all sources (i.e., parents, other
relatives, and friends or neighbors) in states or
territories with UMR compared with states or
territorieswithoutUMR.Amongprofessionals,
lower proportions of reports were initiated
by mental health and social services personnel
in states or territories with UMR compared
with states or territories without UMR.
Child and caregiver characteristics were
significantly different between states and
territories with and without UMR. Com-
pared with states and territories without
UMR, reports made under UMR were more
likely to involve children who were pre-
viously identified as maltreated (20.06% vs
14.79%; c2 = 974; P < .001) and to have
known caregiver risk factors (i.e., domestic
violence, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, in-
adequate housing, and financial problems).

One exception was receipt of public assis-
tance; children of caregivers receiving public
assistance were less likely to be found in re-
ports made under UMR (11.39% vs 13.75%;
c2 = 247; P < .001).
Estimated Odds and Probabilities
of Making a Confirmed Report
Hierarchical logistic regression predicting
confirmation of child physical abuse reports
(Table 3) showed that, after control for child
and caregiver characteristics, reports made by
professionals had 1.32 times greater odds
(P < .001) of being confirmed compared with
those made by nonprofessionals. Reports
made in states and territories with UMR were
less likely to be confirmed (adjusted odds ratio
[AOR] = 0.50; P < .001) compared with
those made in states and territories without
UMR. There was a significant interaction
effect between reporter type and UMR status
(AOR = 1.52; P < .001; Figure 1). Analysis of
marginal effects indicated the mean predicted
probabilities of confirming reports made by
professionals was lower (AME = 3.07%;
P < .001) in states and territories with UMR
(12.04%) than without UMR (15.11%). The
probability of confirming physical abuse re-
ports made by nonprofessionals was also lower
(AME = 5.47%; P < .001) in states and terri-
tories with UMR (6.57%) than those without
UMR (12.04%). Probabilities for making
confirmed physical abuse reports for both
reporter types were significantly lower when

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