By Sheila Rampersad From Trinidad Express

How it can be done

It is legally and socially acceptable to assault children in their homes throughout the Caribbean.

Except it is called “discipline”. But beating children is assault by definition—the act of hitting or striking another person.

In the Caribbean—including Trinidad and Tobago—we are offenders of juveniles, and in order to continue assaulting them, definitions have been adjusted so that an adult hitting another adult is assault, but an adult hitting a child is discipline.

In a 2005-2006 study, UNICEF found the majority of the region’s children between two and 14 years old were being regularly assaulted in their homes. In T&T, 77 per cent of children in that two-to-14 age group had been violently punished in the month before the survey was conducted. The percentages for other Caribbean countries did not vary much: Belize, 70 per cent; Dominican Republic, 83 per cent; Guyana, 76 per cent; Jamaica, 89 per cent; Suriname, 86 per cent; and Barbados, 86 per cent.

Here, the practice continues with little legal censure despite the fact that abolishing it has been recommended over and over again by local, regional and international organisations. In 2002, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recommended T&T prohibit corporal punishment in all settings. As recently as 2011, the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, a United Nations-sanctioned NGO, urged the T&T Government to prohibit corporal punishment of children in all settings—schools, penal institutions, industrial schools and home.

That recommendation referenced the 2006 recommendation by the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which suggested in 1997 and 2006 that the State render illegal and unacceptable the right of adults to beat children in the home and in institutions; the practice was prevalent in both places, said CRC.

Article 22 of T&T’s 1925 Children Act confirms “the right of any parent, teacher, or other person having the lawful control or charge of a child or young person to administer reasonable punishment to such child or young person”. What exactly is “reasonable” is left open to a variety of interpretations.

Contrary to popular understanding, T&T’s Education Act (1996) does not outlaw corporal punishment in schools. Article 18 of the Larceny Act (1919) provides for boys under 16 to be beaten. And under the Young Offenders (Male) Detention Regulations, pursuant to the Young Offenders Detention Act (1926), institutions are authorised to beat children with a rod; that punishment is ordered by the Inspector, Commissioner or Assistant Commissioner of Prisons (article 64 and the Third Schedule), up to 18 strokes, 14 strokes and nine strokes, respectively.

Under the Children Act, children convicted of offences may be sent to a certified industrial school or a certified orphanage, where corporal punishment is lawful under Article 22 of the act. Children in foster-care settings can also be legally beaten.

Children can be beaten anywhere in this country and citizens defend their right to “discipline” children with violence.

Caribbean child protection advocates know the biblical sentence “spare the rod and spoil the child” is the defence most often used by parents, guardians and caregivers. But few people know Christian leaders from across the Caribbean in 2012 released a statement supporting prohibition of corporal punishment.

Acknowledging that it has been said some scriptural texts sanction corporal punishment, the statement said it is not appropriate to take such texts out of their ancient cultural context to justify violence toward children: “We believe that the adoption of legislation to prohibit corporal punishment of children in all settings is a crucial step toward a compassionate, non-violent society…

“Through working with others and honouring children’s human right to equal protection under the law, we can put our faith into action and make significant progress towards a less violent society.”

There are those who feel outlawing corporal punishment will result in parents being sent to jail and leaving children without competent, interested guardians. Developed countries which have outlawed the beating of children—Denmark, Norway, Austria, Cyrus, Italy, etc—recognised this and set out legislation accompanied by social programmes to wean adults off the practice, to educate all young people about parenting for when they have children of their own, and stressed the objective of the legislation was not to punish adults as much as it was to protect children.

Laws were further accompanied by widespread dissemination of information about prohibition to parents, children and others.

In practice, it would be unlikely for minor assaults of children by their parents to lead to prosecution—just as is true for minor assaults of adults. Implementation of the law should be focused on the best interests of the child and, in most cases, prosecuting parents is unlikely to be in a child’s best interests. Prosecution should only be resorted to when regarded as necessary to protect the child from significant harm and as being in the best interests of the affected child.

This is a difficult if not impossible conversation to have in T&T so embedded is the habit of beating children. But more children will be abused, neglected, injured and killed unless citizens are willing to shift their thinking away from seeing violence as “discipline”.

A merry Christmas to all.

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Related story:

Violence against Children in the Caribbean, Persisting Evil

From Presna Latino

Havana (PL) The Caribbean region, with approximately 40 million inhabitants, maintains an intense struggle for the protection of children and eliminating abuse against this sector, the most defenseless of society.

There are several strategies implemented by different governments in the region to end the social problems in children, including physical, sexual and emotional mistreatment, neglect and inattention to infant.

In the case of Jamaica, official figures show that 43 percent of the poor are small kids without sufficient social assistance and adequate quality of life.

Approximately 2,500 children live on the streets and about 22,000 must work to survive. Abuse and violence, added to a high level of illiteracy and high rates of adolescent pregnancies, are among the concerns of the administration of Prime Minister Portia Simpson- Miller.

This group of the Jamaican population is also one of the most affected by HIV/AIDS, with 8 percent of patients, in many cases, infected by their mothers, representing about 4,500 children under 10 years.

Likewise, this small Caribbean nation recorded hundreds of children institutionalized after being abandoned or losing their family.

This year, the government passed the Child Care and Protection Act, along with a warning system to help find missing children.

More than 85 percent of children missing in Jamaica during the period from January to August 23 of this year have returned home thanks to a government plan called Ananda Alert, according to Lisa Hanna, Minister of Youth and Culture.

Moreover, the murder of three children in just two weeks sets off alarm bells in Trinidad and Tobago Government, absorbed in stopping violence against children increasing in that nation.

In response, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar adopted urgent measures to stop these events which, in her opinion, are happening due to dysfunction in homes and domestic violence.

The establishment of the Child Protection Task Force (CPTF) is the first visible step implemented by the ruler to take the child murderers to justice.

She also appointed a team of 17 members, chaired by management expert Diana Mahabir-Wyatt, who will investigate and help infants facing an imminent danger, even inside their own homes.

According to Persad-Bissessar, due to their vulnerability and innocence, children are often subjected to rape and physical abuse, or use drugs since they are cared for by their parents or drug traffickers.

Guyana also called for a national solution to interpersonal violence affecting the quality of life of citizens and children, and carrying a high economic cost.

In this regard, President of Guyana, Donald Ramotar, considered necessary to keep a vigil on the video games, many of which exacerbate the levels of cruelty, while he called to review the judicial system.

About that, he indicated that young people who commit crimes of little gravity and are arrested for first time, they are placed in cells with repeat offenders.

According to Ramotar, the high incidence of interpersonal violence is a problem that the region faces and has alarmed all the leaders of the Caribbean area.

In order to respond to child abuse, regional programs are promoted to maintain the functional units of the family, and provide access to social protection strategies.

These plans allow families to assume their responsibilities, without seeing the tutelage of the state as the first option that provides financial, social and psychological assistance.

Poverty, the weakening of family structures, insufficient community support systems and a deficient parenting are some causes that hit more the range States and prevent them or slow to promote the protection of children.

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Latin America and the Caribbean, there are still 14 million children working, which is equivalent to about 10 percent of children and adolescents.

Of that total, 9 million children work in hazardous jobs, equivalent to a 7 percent of children and adolescents.

A study of the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) about violence against children reveals that the region is one of the most affected by this evil in the world, and this is associated with the proliferation of drugs, firearms and organized crime.

Drug trafficking and petty crimes, access to small arms, as well as poverty and high levels of violence in homes and communities, are important risk factors contributing to crime.

In some areas this phenomenon is also reflected through some incidents in schools, such as homicides and sexual and physical attacks, especially in the last decade, which has permeated the consciousness of most Caribbean governments and their citizens.

For more on this story go to:

http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2195441&Itemid=1