Geisha Kow­lessar

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the Gov­ern­ment will ex­am­ine the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ban­ning cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment in the home as prac­tised in de­vel­oped coun­tries like the Unit­ed States.She made the com­ment in re­sponse to the pub­lic's out­rage over a Face­book video show­ing the beat­ing of a 12-year-old girl by her moth­er, He­len Bartlett, who yes­ter­day de­fend­ed her de­ci­sion to both pun­ish the child and post it on the so­cial net­work­ing site.

The video, which has since gone vi­ral, had sparked calls from mem­bers of the pub­lic that the moth­er be ar­rest­ed and charged for child abuse.Per­sad-Bisses­sar raised the prospect of ban­ning cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment in homes in a re­sponse to a ques­tion from the me­dia yes­ter­day, af­ter de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at a cer­e­mo­ny ho­n­our­ing 25 cen­te­nar­i­ans, host­ed by the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

Not­ing that the law cur­rent­ly does not deal with do­mes­tic is­sues prop­er­ly, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said:"I do not be­lieve leg­is­la­tion has any room in it now for what takes place in the home but it is some­thing that we will have to look in­to. "The Min­istry of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment will look fur­ther in­to the is­sue to de­ter­mine what can be done."

Ad­mit­ting this could pose some chal­lenges, how­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: "You do have leg­is­la­tion per­mit­ting par­ents from as­sault­ing their chil­dren and this is some­thing we would want to look in­to." The PM said the State must al­so take a more ac­tive role in pro­tect­ing chil­dren from abusers in the home.On what could be the spe­cif­ic leg­is­la­ture re­gard­ing cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment in the home, the PM said:

"In my last in­car­na­tion in gov­ern­ment I was vo­cif­er­ous­ly up­braid­ed be­cause I had brought leg­is­la­tion to Par­lia­ment to ban cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment in schools. It was not my do­ing but that of a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment at the time."

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Bartlett ad­mit­ted she beat the child for post­ing in­ap­pro­pri­ate pho­tos of her­self on Face­book but said the child was a trou­ble child and said she had sought coun­selling for her be­fore.On the beat­ing of the child, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "I would not do that if it were me. I do not know what the cir­cum­stances were. I do not know if any cir­cum­stances war­rant­ed as­sault­ing a child in that man­ner."

Asked whether the moth­er should face crim­i­nal charges, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she could not make any com­ments as she was un­aware of all the facts.

Stopped schoolpun­ish­ment

In Feb­ru­ary of 2001, then ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar pi­o­neered leg­is­la­tion which led to a ban on cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment in schools.The rea­sons she of­fered were that cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment was an in­ef­fec­tive means for en­sur­ing that chil­dren learned pos­i­tive val­ues, caused hope­less­ness and de­pres­sion in chil­dren, made chil­dren prone to an­ti-so­cial be­hav­iour, in­clud­ing vi­o­lence, and it harmed par­ent-child re­la­tions.

The move, how­ev­er, was met with dis­plea­sure by many, in­clud­ing then na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Jack Warn­er.Warn­er, speak­ing at a func­tion in 2012, said he re­gret­ted that cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment was abol­ished from the school sys­tem as there was now a cul­ture of in­dis­ci­pline in the na­tion."I rue the day that they stop beat­ing in schools... I rue the day that you go to school and there's no ac­count­abil­i­ty whether there is work or not," Warn­er had said.

Mom could be charged–Samp­son-Browne

Head of the Vic­tims and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit of the Po­lice Ser­vice, Mar­garet Samp­son-Browne, said yes­ter­day the moth­er could be charged un­der the Chil­dren Act as she ex­pressed her dis­ap­point­ment with the man­ner in which the woman went about pun­ish­ing the child.She said the po­lice could al­so in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter with­out it be­ing re­port­ed if there were rea­son­able grounds.

Say­ing there were oth­er av­enues to deal with chil­dren in cir­cum­stances of un­to­ward be­hav­iour, Samp­son-Browne said there could have been se­ri­ous reper­cus­sions if the belt had struck the child in her eye dur­ing the beat­ing.Samp­son-Browne al­so crit­i­cised the oth­er peo­ple who were present in the home and looked on as the blows were be­ing dealt.

"No­body stopped that moth­er and said, 'look enough is enough.' You are beat­ing her with the belt and then you are ac­com­pa­ny­ing it with ob­scene lan­guage and that 12-year-old cow­er­ing down in a cor­ner try­ing to de­fend."She did not even have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to say I'm sor­ry and that is par­ent­ing? For me that is abuse," Samp­son-Browne said.Say­ing she was against cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment, the for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer called on par­ents to show more love to their chil­dren.

That, she added, would not on­ly build self-es­teem but fos­ter trust in the home.