UN report condemns Britain for allowing parents to smack children

Britain was condemned yesterday for continuing to permit the smacking of children, 13 years after signing the United Nations convention on the rights of the child. A UN report yesterday expressed its "deep regret" that Britain continues to tolerate the "reasonable chastisement" of children by parents.

Smacking constitutes "a serious violation of the dignity of the child" and "undermines educational measures to promote positive and non-violent discipline," the UN committee on the rights of the child said.

It called on the Government to change the law to prohibit all corporal punishment in the family, repeating the demand it made in its first highly critical report on the UK's human rights record in 1995. That report was followed in 1998 by a European Court ruling critical of UK law for failing adequately to protect the rights of the child.

The Department of Health published a consultation paper in response to the ruling but the Government announced in November last year that it was retaining the "reasonable chastisement" defence for parents, although corporal punishment is banned in schools.

John Denham, a Home Office minister, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "What we'd all want to do is to reduce smacking as much as possible, but we do that not by bringing the police or criminal law into this but by ... working with parents to show the different ways of dealing with disciplining a child, other than smacking."

He said the Government had never believed the UN convention required the UK to outlaw smacking. He denied that a parent who gave their child a "mild smack" on their hand was on the "slippery slope" to murdering their child.

Other countries, including Germany, Austria, Norway and Sweden, have banned all corporal punishment of children. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children said smacking gave children a lesson in bad behaviour, teaching them that violence pays, and could be physically and emotionally harmful.

Mary Marsh, the chief executive, said: "The law of 'reasonable chastisement', devised in the 19th century, is well past its sell-by date. It sends a dangerous message to parents that hitting children is acceptable and safe, which it clearly is not."

The UN committee also said it remained concerned about the high rate of teenage pregnancies and noted with "deep concern" growing levels of child neglect. It said 296 children had been injured because of restraints and control in prison and urged the Government to review the use of restraint and solitary confinement.

The report also raised concern about the number of children suffering mental health problems and the high rate of suicides among young people.

It was not all bad news for the Government, with the committee praising its children's and young people's unit, the abolition of corporal punishment in schools and implementation of the Human Rights Act into UK law. The commitment to end child poverty was also welcomed, but the committee said many children were still being let down, with poor housing, homelessness, malnutrition and failures in education among its main concerns.