Melis­sa Doughty

Amy An­na­muntho­do. Akiel Cham­bers. Sean Luke. Ja­cob Munroe. Jabari Her­nan­dez. Re­cent­ly, Keyana Cum­ber­batch. These are the names of chil­dren who will for­ev­er be stuck in the mem­o­ry and con­scious­ness of T&T. Not for the good deeds and works they ac­com­plished but for the man­ner in which they were ripped, far too young, from so­ci­ety.While many more names might go un­men­tioned, T&T is now grap­pling with ways to ad­dress an un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed in­crease in child abuse and child sex­u­al abuse.

One way to be­gin, ac­cord­ing to child rights ad­vo­cate Hazel Thomp­son-Ahye, would be to stop cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment in homes.The UN Com­mit­tee on the rights of the child de­fined cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment as, "any pun­ish­ment in which phys­i­cal force is used and in­tend­ed to cause some de­gree of pain or dis­com­fort, how­ev­er light.Most in­volves hit­ting ("smack­ing," "slap­ping," "spank­ing") chil­dren, with the hand or with an im­ple­ment–whip, stick, belt, shoe, wood­en spoon, etc.

But it can al­so in­volve, for ex­am­ple, kick­ing, shak­ing or throw­ing chil­dren, scratch­ing, pinch­ing, bit­ing, pulling hair or box­ing ears, forc­ing chil­dren to stay in un­com­fort­able po­si­tions, burn­ing, scald­ing or forced in­ges­tion (for ex­am­ple, wash­ing chil­dren's mouths out with soap or forc­ing them to swal­low hot spices).

In the com­mit­tee's view, "cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment is in­vari­ably de­grad­ing." In ad­di­tion, it stat­ed, there are oth­er non-phys­i­cal forms of pun­ish­ment which are al­so cru­el and de­grad­ing–pun­ish­ment which be­lit­tles, hu­mil­i­ates, den­i­grates, scape­goats, threat­ens, scares or ridicules the child.Thomp­son-Ahye said re­peal­ing ar­ti­cle 22 of the yet to be en­act­ed Chil­dren's Act would take T&T one step clos­er to be­com­ing a less vi­o­lent so­ci­ety.

Ac­cord­ing to ar­ti­cle 22: "Noth­ing in this part shall be con­strued to take away or af­fect 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." It did not state what was con­sid­ered rea­son­able pun­ish­ment.

Take leg­isla­tive mea­sures

Thomp­son-Ahye in a phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian said all coun­tries which rat­i­fied the con­ven­tion of the rights of the child (T&T in­clud­ed) should take leg­isla­tive mea­sures to en­sure that chil­dren were not abused, sex­u­al­ly or oth­er­wise. Many stud­ies, she said, in­di­cat­ed the need for pro­hi­bi­tion of cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment.

A 2010 on­line re­source sheet from the Aus­tralian In­sti­tute of Fam­i­ly Stud­ies said find­ings on the use of cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment to­wards chil­dren point in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions. Some re­views sug­gest that cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment may lead to ad­verse child out­comes–dis­rup­tive and an­ti-so­cial be­hav­iour; poor aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment; poor at­tach­ment and lack of par­ent-child warmth; men­tal health prob­lems (par­tic­u­lar­ly in­ter­nal­is­ing prob­lems such as de­pres­sion); and sub­stance and al­co­hol abuse.

For Thomp­son-Ahye dis­ci­plin­ing a child does not mean cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment. Many in so­ci­ety, Thomp­son-Ahye said, held the com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that with­out cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment chil­dren in T&T "would be­come like chil­dren in the US...where any­thing goes."

Chil­dren still abused,killed in the face of laws

She quick­ly point­ed out, how­ev­er, that many chil­dren have been abused and some even killed in the US de­spite per­ceived lib­er­al cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment laws. Mean­while, cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment in homes, she said, has not been abol­ished in the US. A De­cem­ber 19 Ed­u­ca­tion Week ar­ti­cle en­ti­tled Cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment per­sists in US schools not­ed that no fed­er­al pol­i­cy ex­ist­ed on cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment in schools. It said cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment re­mained a le­gal form of dis­ci­pline in 19 states.

She said coun­tries such as Swe­den, Fin­land, Cyprus, Spain and neigh­bour­ing Venezuela had abol­ished cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment in homes and, in some cas­es, there had been a marked de­crease in the crime rate.

She said many chil­dren who were spanked would most like­ly want to spank as well, lead­ing to a cy­cle. Thomp­son-Ahye said cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment was al­so in­ef­fec­tive as a form of dis­ci­pline since par­ents would have to hit hard­er each time since the child would even­tu­al­ly be­come ac­cus­tomed and the hit­ting in­ef­fec­tive. She not­ed there was a very thin line be­tween cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment and abuse.

'Par­ents must mir­ror­good at­ti­tudes to kids'

In­stead of hit­ting, she sug­gest­ed that par­ents be­gin mir­ror­ing good be­hav­iours and at­ti­tudes to chil­dren. Hit­ting and cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment, she said, leaves psy­cho­log­i­cal scars. Chil­dren, she said, should be taught to be crit­i­cal thinkers in­stead of be­ing forced to be obe­di­ent."You are ham­per­ing the child's de­vel­op­men­tal skills when you clamp down on chil­dren. You are sti­fling their com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills. Those were the norms be­fore and should not be the norms in these mod­ern times," she said.

Chil­dren, she said, had a right to be treat­ed hu­mane­ly. It was time, she said, that peo­ple ar­rived at a sim­i­lar un­der­stand­ing that just like abus­ing and hit­ting an adult had con­se­quences, sim­i­lar­ly, there would be con­se­quences for hit­ting and abus­ing a child.

Min­istry seek­ing to heed call

Clifton de Coteau, Min­is­ter of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment has re­ferred re­peal of the ar­ti­cle 22 of the yet to be en­act­ed Chil­dren's Act to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan. De Coteau, in a phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day said he was aware of calls for the re­peal of the ar­ti­cle and re­ferred it to Ram­lo­gan for his opin­ion. Once they get Ram­lo­gan's opin­ion, de Coteau said the nec­es­sary leg­isla­tive mea­sures would be tak­en. De Coteau could not give a de­fin­i­tive time­line as to how long it would take for Ram­lo­gan to give his opin­ion.

He added that T&T, hav­ing rat­i­fied the UN con­ven­tion on the rights of the child, un­der­took a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, un­der ar­ti­cle 19 of that con­ven­tion, to pro­tect the child from all forms of vi­o­lence.

Ar­ti­cle 19 states, "State par­ties shall take all ap­pro­pri­ate leg­isla­tive, ad­min­is­tra­tive, so­cial and ed­u­ca­tion­al mea­sures to pro­tect the child from all forms of phys­i­cal or men­tal vi­o­lence, in­jury or abuse, ne­glect or neg­li­gent treat­ment, mal­treat­ment or ex­ploita­tion, in­clud­ing sex­u­al abuse, while in the care of par­ent(s), le­gal guardian(s) or any oth­er per­son who has the care of the child."

T&T not sub­mit­ting re­ports to UN on rights of the child

At a sem­i­nar at Hugh Wood­ing Law school, St Au­gus­tine ear­li­er this month, ad­dress­ing is­sues sur­round­ing women, chil­dren and hu­man rights, Prof of Gen­der, So­cial Change and De­vel­op­ment Rho­da Red­dock and di­rec­tor of the Nether­lands In­sti­tute of Hu­man Rights Cees Flinter­man not­ed that the T&T Gov­ern­ment had not been sub­mit­ting its re­ports (as of­ten as it should)on the progress made on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the con­ven­tion on the rights of the child. It was un­cer­tain when T&T's last re­port was sub­mit­ted.

Gov­ern­ments who have rat­i­fied the con­ven­tions are re­quired by in­ter­na­tion­al law to re­port and ap­pear be­fore the UN com­mit­tee on the rights of the child pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly to ex­am­ine the progress made on im­ple­men­ta­tion of the con­ven­tions and the sta­tus of chil­dren rights in the coun­try.

"All States par­ties are oblig­ed to sub­mit reg­u­lar re­ports to the com­mit­tee on how the rights are be­ing im­ple­ment­ed. States must sub­mit an ini­tial re­port two years af­ter ac­ced­ing to the con­ven­tion and then pe­ri­od­ic re­ports every five years. The com­mit­tee ex­am­ines each re­port and ad­dress­es its con­cerns and rec­om­men­da­tions to the State par­ty in the form of "con­clud­ing ob­ser­va­tions," the com­mit­tee's Web site states.

Na­tion­al Par­ent­ing Pro­gramme to be launched ear­ly next year

While the Ed­u­ca­tion Act of 1996 made no men­tion of cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment in schools, the Chil­dren's (Amend­ment) Act of 2000 makes ref­er­ence to cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment in schools.

The amend­ed act states un­der sec­ond sched­ule, part b that par­ents or lo­co par­en­tis (Latin for "in the place of a par­ent" refers to the le­gal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of a per­son or or­gan­i­sa­tion to take on some of the func­tions and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of a par­ent), has a "re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect the child from un­law­ful phys­i­cal vi­o­lence and all forms of phys­i­cal or emo­tion­al abuse, ne­glect or neg­li­gent treat­ment, mal­treat­ment or ex­ploita­tion, in­clud­ing sex­u­al abuse, while in the par­ent's care."

He added that the Na­tion­al School Code of Con­duct (2009) of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion states that cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment should not be used but that there was still some le­gal­i­ty to cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment in schools un­der ar­ti­cle 22 of the Chil­dren's Act.

He said to ad­dress such mat­ters he planned to work with oth­er min­istries and stake­hold­ers. Par­ents, he said, should seek al­ter­na­tive forms of dis­ci­pline oth­er than cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment and that in the first quar­ter of 2014 the min­istry will launch its Na­tion­al Par­ent­ing Pro­gramme which would give par­ents al­ter­na­tive ways of dis­ci­plin­ing with­out cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment.

A glob­al call

Thomp­son-Ahye's call is not new but part of a larg­er glob­al ini­tia­tive to end cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment in homes, schools and oth­er places.

The world-wide ini­tia­tive called the Glob­al Ini­tia­tive to End all Cor­po­ral Pun­ish­ment of Chil­dren, which be­gan in April 2001, pro­motes the use of non-vi­o­lent ways of dis­ci­plin­ing chil­dren and pro­motes the hu­man rights of the child. The ini­tia­tive's Web site states, "Cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment of chil­dren breach­es their fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights to re­spect for hu­man dig­ni­ty and phys­i­cal in­tegri­ty.

Its le­gal­i­ty in al­most every state world­wide–in con­trast to oth­er forms of in­ter-per­son­al vi­o­lence–chal­lenges the uni­ver­sal right to equal pro­tec­tion un­der the law. The aims of the glob­al ini­tia­tive al­ready have the sup­port of Unicef, mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee of the rights of the child and key in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­di­vid­u­als."

It said fur­ther, "Just as the Com­mit­tee on the elim­i­na­tion of dis­crim­i­na­tion against women has been pre­oc­cu­pied with do­mes­tic vi­o­lence to women, so the com­mit­tee on the rights of the child is now lead­ing the chal­lenge to vi­o­lence to chil­dren."When rep­re­sen­ta­tives of these two com­mit­tees met in 1998 in Gene­va to dis­cuss ac­tion against fam­i­ly vi­o­lence, they agreed that "ze­ro tol­er­ance" was the on­ly pos­si­ble tar­get.

Next week: Al­ter­na­tives to cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment