A BAN on smacking sends a “very clear message” to parents that physical punishment for children is “not acceptable”, a Scottish Government minister has said.
Children’s Minister Maree Todd also dismissed claims that outlawing smacking could lead to a rise in assaults and rapes.
She spoke out after professor Robert Larzelere from Oklahoma University claimed Sweden had recorded massive increase in rapes of children under the age of 15 after a ban on corporal punishment was introduced.
READ MORE: Smacking ban unwarranted and unworkable, say campaigners
He told MSPs on Holyrood’s Equalilties Committee: “Some of this 73-fold increase is likely because a small but increasing number of boys never learn to accept ‘no’ from their mothers or from others objecting to what they want.”
Todd rejected this, saying: “There are always in science voices who challenge evidence but I’m very clear that the body of evidence is supportive that using violence, using physical punishment in children, leads to more likelihood of violence in older age. There is quite a strong link between having been physically punished and behavioural problems later on.”
She told the committee that the “evidence is growing that smacking is harmful to children, that it is an ineffective form of discipline”.
John Finnie, a Green MSP, has introduced the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) Bill which, if passed, would remove the defence of “justifiable assault” in Scots law, which allows parents to use physical punishment on children.
Campaign group Be Reasonable, which has branded this an “intrusion into family life”, staged a demonstration outside Holyrood as the committee heard from both Todd and Finnie.
Finnie explained his bill was not created to increase the number of parents being prosecuted, saying this had not happened in countries where similar laws were introduced.
Todd said the ban “will send a clear message it’s not necessary for parents and carers to use physical punishment to discipline their children”.
The minister added: “The important thing for us to do is to bring clarity to the situation, to say absolutely physical punishment is not acceptable in Scotland.”
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