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Corporal punishment is one of the most widely accepted ways of correcting delinquent or wayward behaviors of children. Most of the time, parents and caregivers who do not resort to corporal punishment to correct the deviant behaviors of their wards or children are supposed to be so permissive and encouraging of children’s bad manners.
By way of definition, Straus and Donnelly (2005) defines corporal punishment as the use of physical force with the intention of causing pain, but not injury, to correct or control a child’s behavior. The literature shows that many people have defined corporal punishment in their own opinions. However, I find the above definition to be ideal for this article as it indicates the purpose of corporal punishment, therefore correcting deviant behaviors and not harming the child. A child according to Constitution, 1992, is anyone who has not attained 18 years of age. However, in the context of corporal punishment, a child would be any child under the age of sixteen (16). (Article 41 of the Criminal Offenses Act 1960). This article, among other helpful information, seeks to address the main question most parents ask about whether their children can sue them for disciplining them and to what extent the law allows parents to discipline their children.
As stated above, corporal punishment is widely accepted that it is seemingly impossible to find an individual within Ghanaian society who can boast of never having been beaten as a child or has never beaten a child to stop deviant behavior. If one is ever exempt from corporal punishment at home, he is less likely to be exempt at school. Most corporal punishment meted out at home by parents or legal guardians or in schools, by educators and school personnel includes hitting, squeezing, spanking, pinching, rowing, pulling hair, slapping, kneeling, among others.
Corporal punishment has been going on for a long time and has religious and legal approval in some jurisdictions. In the Orthodox Jewish Bible, Proverbs 22:15, affirms that “Foolishness is linked to the heart of the child, but the rod of correction will deprive him of it.” Proverbs 19:18 declares that “he punishes his son while there is hope, that his soul does not forgive his crying”. Finally, the most popular verse in this context says that “He who forgives the rod hates his son; but the one who loves him punishes him in time (Proverbs 13:24). Refusing to use canning or other forms of corporal punishment is widely believed in northern Ghana to be poor child-rearing and encourages the diversion of children.
Legally, Section 41 (a) of the Criminal Offenses Act 1960 (Act 29) approves that a parent can correct their legitimate or illegitimate child, who is under sixteen years of age, or any guardian, or person acting as guardian, his ward, who is under sixteen years of age, for misconduct or disobedience to any legal mandate. It is significant to state that Ghana has ended corporal punishment in schools, but there is no clear amendment to the Section 41 that stops corporal punishment at home.
However, the question that seems so unanswered by the religious and legal provisions that approve of corporal punishment is: to what extent can a father subject his child to corporal punishment? Under the Ghana stage, Article 13 (2) of the Children’s Act 1998 captures the scope of corporal punishment as a “justifiable and reasonable” correction of a child. The application of justifiable and reasonable force confirms the definition of Straus and Donnelly, therefore, corporal punishment is not intended to cause injury, but to correct the child.
For a better understanding of the application of “justifiable and reasonable” force, it would be important to state the facts and arguments of A v. United Kingdom (1999) held at the European Court of Human Rights.
The facts of Against the United Kingdom (1999) They are simple: the victim of the punishment (and for convenience hereafter referred to as “A”) was packaged by his stepfather with a garden stick. The stepfather argued that A had poor discipline and disobeyed the rules of the school and parents, guardians and control. A pediatrician confirmed that A’s injuries coincided with the use of a garden cane applied with considerable force. The jury found that the stepfather did not break the law, as the stepfather’s actions were a reasonable punishment from “A”. On appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, “A” argued that the state has not protected her from the mistreatment of her stepfather. The Court admitted the appeal and held that there was a violation of Article 3 of the European Commission of Human Rights. For the court, maltreatment must reach a minimum level of severity to come within the scope of article 3. Basically, the court stated that child discipline using corporal punishment that causes actual bodily harm or injury cannot be considered justified on the basis of reasonable punishment and punishment. A nine (9) year old who is injured by the severity of canning cannot be said to be a reasonable punishment.
Although the trial in A v. United Kingdom (supra) admonished the UK to adhere to the rules set out in the UN CRC abolishing all forms of corporal punishment, the UK Children’s Act 2006, did not abolish corporal punishment in the home, but requires that no one deliberately or recklessly causes harm to a child that is more than transitory and trivial (See Section 58 of the Juvenile Law.). Therefore, section 58 of current legislation, the UK Juvenile Act, removes the defense of legal punishment for parents or adults acting in locus parentis when the accused person has caused serious bodily harm or injuries on the hook. to correct the child.
The justification for legal correctness has always eliminated unreasonable aggression against children. In R vs. Hopley (1860) 2F and F 202, the court stated that “By the law of England, a parent can correct the wrong in the child by inflicting moderate and reasonable corporal punishment, provided, however, with this condition, that it is moderate and reasonable.
Relate previous precedents in the United Kingdom with Ghana Article 41 (a) of the Criminal Offenses Act 1960, it is obvious that the wording of the section is not that different from the position of the law in the UK. Therefore, it can be said that the interpretation of justifiable and reasonable as stated in the laws of Ghana means not to cause unreasonable physical harm to children. Canning, slapping or pinching should be very moderate to never cause serious bodily harm to children. Furthermore, punishment is not justifiable if due to the young age of the victim, he or she is unable to understand the purpose of inflicting corporal punishment. (Section 41 (2) (3) of the Criminal Offenses Act of 1960).
The excessive application of force to children will amount to responsibilities in case of assault and battery. In some cases, parents seem to exert so much force on children; it is illegal and there is no legal protection for such offenders for reasons of reasonable and justifiable punishment of the child in the child rearing process. The lives of children must be adequately protected from abuse and excessive corporal punishment.
Due to excesses, international organizations and scientific research have been involved in discovering the effects of corporal punishment on children. The results have always been undesirable: “In a major meta-analysis, all 12 studies found that corporal punishment is significantly associated with a decline in children’s mental health, including conduct disorders, anxiety disorders, depression, and hopelessness” (Talwar V, Carlson SM & Lee K, Effects of a Punitive Environment on Children’s Executive Functioning: A Natural Experiment. Social Development, 20, 805–824).
Consequently, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which establishes international standards for the political, health, social, economic and cultural rights of children requires member states to repeal corporal punishment.
Article 19 (1) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child establishes that “the States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or Negligent treatment, mistreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while under the care of the parents, legal guardians or any other person who has the care of the child.
Article 37 It establishes that “the States Parties shall ensure that: a) No child is subjected to torture or to other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Ghana is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and should adopt the provisions of Articles 19 and 37 of the CDN. However, it is difficult to achieve a Ghana in which no parent can even correct a child without any spanking, pinching, canning, or even a little slap. Article 41 of the 1960 Law remains unamended despite many people advocating for its amendment. Reasonably, before Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child can be fully achieved, Section 19 should be amended. However, it is the suggestion of the writer that this process of introducing a completely new culture of early childhood education should be progressive in Ghanaian society. the Ministries are spreading and educating the population about the effects, that is a commendable activity.
Rather, as it stands now, parents should be encouraged to correct their children in a reasonable and justifiable way, as it will be strange and practically difficult for parents to assimilate an entirely new culture and stop a long-lasting belief in nature. cane correction.
As Ghanaian society progressively transforms, education should be provided on how to correct deviant behavior without resorting to corporal punishment. Additionally, the legal effects and consequences of the application of extreme corporal punishment must be educated at the time. However, it is not impeccable to expect that the entire population will give universal approval to early childhood education without corporal punishment in a short period, therefore, stakeholders should educate parents on the current law, hence a punishment. justifiable and reasonable. (Article 41 of Law 25).
In conclusion, the evils of our belief in corporal punishment have been revealed by science and we hope that science itself will provide us with alternative forms of early childhood education without any form of corporal punishment. The laws that govern us guarantee us protection if the training of our child with moderate canning and moderate corporal punishment is reasonable and justifiable. If the law on justifiable and legal punishments is to be amended, then the population must be educated on how never to resort to corporal punishment but to achieve responsible and non-deviant upbringing of children. If this is not done, the courts must be prepared to resolve legal cases between children and their parents based on the failure to comply with the law that will protect them from never being “touched” when they constantly engage in deviant behavior, as Ghanaian mother and father have come to believe that he adopts corporal punishment as a means of correcting a child. Corporal punishment in its excess is completely wrong, and if the eradication of corporal punishment in Ghana is achieved, it will be laudable, however, it will require such intense education to convince the population. If we resort to criminalizing all forms of corporal punishment without the good interest of the people in such a law, the law will not have the quality of general acceptance that is a basic feature of all good law.
