A viewpoint by Professor Hugh Matthews,
Editor of Children’s Geographies

Among the goals of Children’s Geographies is to provide an informed forum within which to consider the multifarious worlds of children and young people.

From this perspective recent legislative changes within the UK are of considerable interest, particularly when set against the promises made by government to children and young people through the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child. When the UK government signed the Convention in 1991 it confirmed an agreement that children and young people are citizens whose entitlements straddle moral, political and social agendas.

So it’s disappointing to observe that in their 2002 report the United Nations Committee of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) issued the UK with no less than 78 recommendations to make its law and practice compatible with its earlier pledge.

Indeed, an update by the Secretariat of the Children’s Rights Alliance of England in November 2004 (CRAE 2004) – a coalition of more than 230 voluntary and statutory organisations committed to children’s rights – reveals that progress has been made with respect to only 17 of these recommendations (CRAE 2004a). The UK will next be examined in 2009, but in the view of Jaap Doek – chair of the UNCRC – “this is a long time to wait for children whose human rights are being violated today” (CRAE, 2004b: 1).

Among the continuing issues of concern is the protection given to children from assault by adults. At the time of writing it seems to me that the UK government has missed a crucial opportunity to join a growing number of countries that do not allow children to be hit or smacked, even by their parents.

Amongst the UK’s near neighbours in Europe ten countries already forbid any form of physical assault on a child, thus affording children the same legal rights as adults (Table 1). However, within the UK a child can be hit or smacked providing a parent or guardian can satisfy the court that his or her behaviour constituted ‘reasonable chastisement’.

Justifying its decision, the government claims that it does not wish to interfere in the private relationship between parents and their children and that most people understand the difference between reprimand and assault.

Currently 10 European countries forbid smacking: Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Norway and Sweden. Sweden was the first state to prohibit the smacking of children. In its Parenthood and Guardianship Code a strong case is made for children’s right to care, security and a good upbringing. Children are to be treated with respect to their person and individuality and must not be subjected to corporal punishment and humiliating treatment. Indeed, it is an obligation of Sweden’s Children’s Rights Commissioner to ensure universal compliance.

In comparison, the UK falls a long way short of this ideal. Indeed, until the Children Act 2004 (November) within England, unlike Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, there was no Children’s Commissioner to publicly oversee matters. Even now this new role will fall a long way short of the kind of rights-based commissioner in place in at least 26 other countries (CRAE, 2004a).

Caroline Willow – national coordinator of CRAE – has labelled England’s new Commissioner as “rights-lite”. She points out that at best this person will be restricted to raising awareness of the views and interests of children rather than acting as a powerful, independent champion, supported by law to promote and safeguard children’s rights (CRAE, 2004b). For the UK government its millennium challenge must surely be to increase considerably its efforts to implement an executive promise that is now more than 14 years old.

References
Children’s Right Alliance for England (2004a) State of Children’s Rights in England 2004. Annual Review of UK Government Action on 2002 Concluding Observations of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. London. CRAE.

Children’s Right Alliance for England (2004b) Rights News – November 2004. Accessed at www.crae.org.uk

*A fuller version of this piece appears in the next edition of Children’s Geographies, to be published in March 2005.

Professor Hugh Matthews
Direction of the Centre for Children & Youth
University College Northampton
hugh.matthews@northampton.ac.uk