|
Norman Wells is the Director of Family and Youth Concern
(FYC). This article was previously published in the FYC Family Bulletin, No.
116, summer 2004 |
Among the myths being perpetrated by
the anti-smacking lobby is the claim that in the 25 years since all physical
correction of children was banned in
However, figures published in the Unicef report Child Maltreatment Deaths in Rich Nations
(September 2003), reveal that during a five-year period in the 1990s, deaths
from maltreatment occurred at an annual rate of 0.5 or 0.6 children per 100,000
aged under 15 in Sweden, compared with 0.4 or 0.9 in the United Kingdom,
depending on whether or not unconfirmed cases were included. Of the four
countries with the lowest child maltreatment death rates (
Despite our best efforts to present the BBC1 Politics Show team with the truth when they called for a recorded interview in mid-June, alas, the fable was again relayed as incontrovertible fact on the following weekend’s broadcast, aggravated by its being displayed in text form emblazoned across the screen on the respective nations’ flags.
We subsequently took this up with the programme editors who, to their credit, made thorough
enquiries which took them, via the NSPCC, to
Finally, on 4 July, the Politics Show broadcast the following correction:
"On our programme
three weeks ago, we carried an item about the possibility of a ban on smacking,
and in that film we stated that in Sweden where they have a ban on smacking,
only four children have died from child abuse in 25 years, whereas in the UK
the equivalent figure is one a week.
"Now, we got these figures
from the NSPCC and they are, indeed, startling, but alas they are also
misleading. In fact, according to the Swedish Bureau of Statistics and UNICEF,
the rate of child mortality at the hands of parents or carers
in