Wales may be the first country in the UK to ban spanking, or what it calls "smacking" as a means for parents and caregivers to discipline children.
"The UK is completely out of step," admits Labour AM Christine Chapman. "Thirty other countries across the world have banned smacking."
"Parents who hit children tend to do it when they are angry," Chapman continued. "It is rarely done in a cool, calculated way. We don't condone hitting adults and it is nonsensical to say that children can be hit."
"When does an open hand become a fist?" asked Plaid Cymru AM Lindsay Whittle, another advocate of anti-smacking legislation. "When does an open palm dislocate a jaw or perforate an eardrum?"
The current legislation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland allows "reasonable chastisement" of children, while Scotland changed its law in 2003 to ban hitting on the head, shaking or punishing with a belt, cane or other implement.
Here in Canada, spanking isn't regarded as a criminal act when force "is part of a genuine effort to educate the child, poses no reasonable risk of harm that is more than transitory and trifling, and is reasonable under the circumstances."
The above doesn't apply to children under two or teenagers. And use of instruments -- such as rulers and belts, or striking a child on the face or head -- is prohibited.
Unfortunately, what constitutes "reasonable" force is always open to debate. Isn't it time Canada put in place a full ban on corporal punishment for children, like Sweden did back in 1979?
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