New law to ban spanking
29 Jul 2013
A new law is being drafted to make it illegal for parents to spank their children at home, the Sunday Times reported.
"If a husband beats a wife it's a crime, but if a parents hits a child who is helpless, it's not illegal," social development minister Bathabile Dlamini told the newspaper. She said parents had to take responsibility and raise their children with proper values, to ensure they "don't end up killing your own children."
Corporal punishment has been outlawed at school since 2006. The Sunday Times reported that, under the draft law, parents would be charged with assault if, at home, they used a flat hand on child's bottom or enacted other forms of corporal punishment.
Apparently BD is unable to distinguish between "beating" a wife (or a husband for that matter) and spanking a child. There are of course laws already to punish abusers of women, men, children, cats, dogs and so on. I'm sure my parents (who gave me a smack bottom a - very - few times) didn't "end up killing their own children" purely by luck.
Not stated above, the law would also ban "excessive" use of compulsory physical activity as a punishment - so no "Drop and give me ten".
Someone here said to me "Well it all started in America didn't it" and my reply was "AFAIK there is no USian law forbidding a parent to spank a child - although abuse is of course not legal". Am I still correct?
Meade
