Saoirse Brady is the Research and Projects Manager with the Children’s Rights Alliance. The Alliance unites over 100 organisations working together to make Ireland one of the best places in the world to be a child. The Alliance improves the lives of all children and young people by ensuring Ireland’s laws, policies and services comply with the standards set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The Children’s Rights Alliance recently reiterated its call to introduce a ban on corporal punishment within the home and in alternative care settings. This latest appeal to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs has been issued in light of a collective complaint brought against Ireland by the Association for the Protection of All Children (APPROACH) Ltd. to the European Committee of Social Rights in February 2013. APPROACH alleges that Ireland has taken no effective action to remedy its violation of Article 17 of the European Social Charter - the right of children and young people to social, legal and economic protection - by prohibiting all corporal punishment and other cruel or degrading forms of punishment of children. The Committee held that the complaint was admissible and the Government has been asked to respond to the complaint by 27 September 2013.
Ireland is a signatory to the Revised European Charter of Social Rights, a treaty of the Council of Europe. While the State has not signed up to all of the provisions of this treaty, such as the right to housing for example, it has given a commitment under Article 17 of the Charter to “protect children and young persons against negligence, violence or exploitation” and this includes physical punishment by parents or guardians, child-minders and foster parents. Currently a common law defence of ‘reasonable chastisement’ can be invoked by a perpetrator in Irish law but the Alliance believes that violence against children in any form is not excusable and can never be deemed acceptable.
In a previous complaint brought against Ireland by the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) in 2005, the Committee issued a decision that there was a violation of Article 17 of the Charter and “[a]lthough the criminal law will protect children from very serious violence within the home, it remains the fact that certain forms of violence are permitted.” The Committee emphasised that “the prohibition of all the forms of violence must have a legislative basis”.
However, the Government has failed to act on the Committee’s previous decision. While it has stated that the matter is under review it has also maintained that any change would require very careful consideration. When the most recent complaint was lodged, Minister Fitzgerald responded to a Parliamentary Question stating that there are already legal deterrents in place to prevent the corporal punishment of children and that there is “a balance to be found between supporting parents in effective parenting, in particular, in use of non-violent forms of discipline, and the use of criminal law to impose criminal sanctions on parents who do not adhere to best practice in parenting”.
The Government has stated that the use of physical punishment is infrequent or rare; it refers to the 2009 survey – Parenting Styles and Disciplines: Parents’ and Children’s Perspectives – where 25 per cent of parents self-reported using some form of physical punishment of their child or children within the previous year.
The Irish State has been criticised by other international and national actors including the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in its Concluding Observations on Ireland in 2006 and more recently, during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process in 2011. During that process, the Irish Government partially accepted a recommendation put forward to prohibit corporal punishment stating that the matter is under continuous review. At the national level both Emily Logan, the Ombudsman for Children and Geoffrey Shannon, the Rapporteur on Child Protection have called for a ban on corporal punishment.
The State’s response to the Committee is due on 27 September 2013 and there will be an opportunity for APPROACH to comment further before the Committee issues its final decision.
The response to the European Committee on Social Rights represents an opportunity to ensure that the State fully complies with its human rights obligations to protect children by introducing a legal ban on physical punishment. Such a prohibition would also send out a clear message to parents and caregivers that any form of violence against children will not be tolerated under any circumstances. The Alliance agrees that it is critical that family support and parent education programmes are developed and adequately resourced to discourage parents from physically disciplining their children and to provide them with non-violent alternatives. However, this step in isolation will not meet the specific legal requirements the State has accepted in ratifying Article 17 of the European Charter of Social Rights.
The Alliance urges the Government to take meaningful action to prohibit all forms of violence against children and legislate for a ban on corporal punishment as a matter of urgency.