Your Majesty
Honourable Ministers
Excellencies
Distinguished guests
I was pleased to accept this invitation, extended by the Austrian government, to speak about our collective duty in safeguarding a child’s right to a childhood free from corporal punishment. Today we can celebrate that 48 countries have enacted laws that prohibit corporal punishment.
However, more must be done.
Changing our laws is an important first step. Yet we must also ensure that a cultural change takes place. We must encourage all other nations who have not yet made this first step to consider their responsibilities towards our children. Equally vital, is the monitoring and appraisal of the implementation of our own national efforts, as nations who have already enacted laws against corporal punishment.
This conference provides a platform from which to renew our commitment to ensuring that children are granted the respect inherent in their humanity and vulnerability.
We have an opportunity to send a clear message that the physical punishment of children cannot continue to go unchallenged in our societies. It cannot continue to be treated as a credible and legitimate disciplinary and parenting practice.
At the opening of this session, I shall address the legal change that occurred in Malta, but more importantly I shall speak about the need for a universal cultural transformation that reflects the promise of these laws.
What we envision here today is a global reorientation, away from the mistaken belief that some degree of violence inflicted on children is ever justifiable. That some degree of violence inflicted on children can ever be legally, socially, or culturally acceptable.
Let us be crystal clear.
Corporal punishment of children can never be justified or accepted.
It must never be seen as anything other than a terrible abuse of power; the victimisation of the vulnerable; and the systematic destruction of human dignity.
There is much research that highlights the damaging effects of corporal punishment on the development of the child.
One typical example, from a study published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect reports that regardless of the culture or community a child lives in, corporal punishment is, and I quote, “a potential source of lasting psychological harm.”
Corporal punishment does not improve children’s behaviour, but rather, teaches aggressive attitudes which can manifest it in antisocial and destructive activities.
In February 2014, the Maltese Parliament amended the Criminal Code to effectively prohibit all corporal punishment of children. Before this reform, the exercise of “moderate” corporal punishment was accepted. However the 2014 amendment added a clause to the article clarifying that no form of corporal punishment could be considered “moderate”.
Indeed, the amended article now makes clear that a parent may be deprived of the rights of parental authority, and I quote from the Maltese law, “if the parent, exceeding the bounds of reasonable chastisement, ill-treats the child, or neglects [their] education”. Reasonable chastisement can no longer be considered an excuse for physically harming children.
I believe that now is the moment for us to go further in safeguarding the dignity of each child; not only their physical integrity but also their emotional and psychological wellbeing. Our legal reforms will be robbed of their vitality if they are not met with an underlying transformation of values, attitudes, and cultural practices.
Punitive violence against children cannot continue to play a role in the lives of so many children.
We cannot maintain that we are dedicated to achieving a positive peace without this radical transformation of our societies.
We must tackle this most basic abuse of human dignity perpetuated through cycles of violence within families, communities, and entire societies.
We must also dissolve the false distinction, which is carried in our discourse that would see violence against children and corporal punishment addressed as separate issues.
They are not.
They both revolve around the abuse of power and a deeply damaging abuse of trust.
I am sure that we all agree that violence, especially hiding behind the excuse of physical discipline, is never acceptable. The vulnerable bodies and young minds of children are especially susceptible to abuse. Such abuse violates the trust placed upon those whose duty it is to care for, to nurture, and protect children from harm.
Violence against children damages a nation’s peace of mind.
Whether motivated by educative, religious, or other beliefs, some people may seek to excuse their behaviours. Such excuses are no different from the misuse and the manipulation of cultural traditions in the service of other forms of violence and discrimination, such as the oppression of women, the degradation of LGBT individuals, or the marginalisation of vulnerable groups on the basis of ethnicity, race, and disability.
Indeed, violence against children is a basic threat to all inclusive societies.
Many people express a great sense of unease when the actions of parents and guardians, hitting and humiliating children, is challenged. This reaction demonstrates how entrenched such behaviours are within cultures across so many communities. Let us therefore find ways to practically address the root causes for the manifestation of violence in our families and our communities.
We cannot allow the normalisation of violence against children to continue.
There is, and can be, no relationship between legislation and policies that ostensibly seek to uphold a child’s best interests, their wellbeing, and the sanctioning of corporal punishment.
The moment a child’s physical integrity is breached, we have rejected the basic principle of respect at the root of fundamental rights.
Our laws must be at the vanguard in addressing these concerns. They must tackle the most deep-rooted and dangerous abuse. This abuse is to see other people not as valuable and precious identities, but rather, as objects that can be exploited.
This attitude of exploitation conditions our experiences of reality. It is embedded within our economies, our relationships with the natural environment, towards minority groups, vulnerable communities, and most worryingly of all, towards our children.
There is a need for long-term education, beginning in schools and continued across society.
Allow me to share with you one example from work carried out by my Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society. The President’s Secret Garden is a methodology and a community of learning, which has created empowering and engaging spaces in Malta and Gozo. It prioritises a peace-oriented and non-violent pedagogy, which focuses on the participation of all children and values their wellbeing.
The child is not, and can never be, an object.
And yet, by some societies believing that corporal punishment is acceptable, that is precisely the message they send.
The tacit acceptance and legality of daily punitive violence towards children, still ingrained in the mentalities of so many societies, cannot continue.
How can we speak credibly about the inherent dignity and worth of the child if we are unable to safeguard all children at their most vulnerable?
Abolishing corporal punishment must be an essential component of our strategies for ending every form of violence against children.
The role of the media, alongside legal reform and social policy, is clear. We cannot stand by while the physical punishment of children is trivialised or normalised.
We must hold ourselves to account, urging closer collaboration between the media, civil society, and governments to put the issue of physical punishment of children on the public agenda.
By challenging all corporal punishment, we are united in pursuing the equal right of every child to respect for their human dignity and physical integrity.
It must be our primary concern that we improve the status of children in society, and recognise them as rights holders alongside everyone else.
Achieving the universal recognition of a child’s equal right to respect and protection under the law will be a powerful breakthrough. It will bring us closer to an authentic implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Let me again emphasise that our global goal cannot only rest on legal reform.
It must be a cultural transformation, a shift in the way the child is regarded and respected within our societies.
Children must be active participants in achieving this change. It is the particularities of their experiences that must guide us to ensure they receive more, rather than less, protection.
The child’s vulnerability, their developmental status, their dependence on those in positions of authority, and the great difficulties they face in seeking protection for themselves, must be foremost in our minds.
Listening to our children must be the cornerstone in the way we develop laws and policies that safeguard their wellbeing.
My Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society works to prioritise the participation of children across every level of engagement. Our National Child Conference on Bullying, held last year in Malta, created a safe and respectful space where children could share their experiences with academics and practitioners. It fostered an enriching environment, where approaches to a sustainable change were collaborative and reflective. I now hope to host the next high-level global conference on corporal punishment in Malta and welcome you there.
In conclusion, let me say that if we are truly committed in our efforts to build peace among nations, we must begin by making peace in the home. We must begin in our families and our communities. The prioritising of legislation, policies, and socio-educational initiatives to end corporal punishment of children sends a strong message about the kind of world in which we want to live.
Let the minds, the bodies, and the dignity of our children be our first concern.
Let us work together, striving to make this the last generation which perpetuates the lie that violence inflicted on children is ever acceptable.
Violence against children, including corporal punishment, can have no part in a culture built on the values of dignity, of justice, and of peace.
Thank you.