PETITION CALLING FOR THE ABOLITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN
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TO THE HONOURABLE THE PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF NEW SOUTH WALES
The petition of certain citizens of New South Wales states that:
* Parliament has a duty to provide children with legal protection from physically abusive practices, which we believe includes the practice of corporal punishment. The common law allows parents to punish children with "reasonable force". "Reasonable force" has not been defined in terms of the type of physical force used and nature of the harm caused to the child. It has sometimes been interpreted to include punching, kicking, hitting around the head, hitting with objects such as belts, sticks, extension cords, cricket bats etc and causing bruises, welts, abrasions, broken bones, head injuries and even the child's or infant's death.
* We consider that all corporal punishment inevitably causes psychological as well as physical harm to children, because it is essentially an attempt to exercise a coercive control based on pain, fear and/or humiliation, and as such needs to be recognised as unreasonable under any circumstances.
* We believe the current legislation does little to prevent child physical abuse. We consider any such legislation must set clear standards in the prevention of violence against children or be considered contrary to their fundamental human rights and to their need for equal protection under the law as guaranteed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Furthermore, we consider it to be logically and morally indefensible to demand a parental right to do to children what is, by definition, a gross violation of human rights if done to adults and an offence legally recognised as cruelty when inflicted upon animals.
THEREFORE Your petitioners pray that the house will speedily enact legislation which provides legal protection for children from the practice of corporal punishment.
NAME ....................................ADDRESS (Full home address).................................SIGNATURE
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PETITION CALLING FOR THE ABOLITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN