Family Integrity

Author: HEF Admin

  • Emails from Ruby Harrold-Claesson


    Email from Ruby Harrold-Claesson – 15 November 2007

    15 November 2007 – Smacked 5-year old – father acquitted

    Dear All,

    On Nov 9, inst. Ystad District Court acquitted a father who had smacked his 5-year old daughter. I have translated an article that was published in Aftonbladet for your convenience.

    This case, like the 2004 case with the 15 year old who spat in her stepfather’s face, is going to get a lot of attention.

    I guess people are starting to realise that “We are bringing up a generation of monsters” that Linda Skugge wrote about and that really “The children are embarrassing Sweden” to quote Roger Lord. And maybe they are beginning to realise that it is better to smack them to change their ways than have some desperate parents shoot them off in an attempt to protect their families, like the case in Rodeby on October 6, inst.

    Sincerely

    Ruby Harrold-Claesson
    Sweden
    Attorney-at-law
    President of the NCHR/NKMR
    http://www.nkmr.org

    Smacked 5-year old – father acquitted
    He admitted smacking the District Court meant that the blows were not hard enough

    Aftonbladet – 2007-11-14

    http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article1250685.ab

    A father in southern Skåne has been acquitted, in spite of him admitting to smacking his 5 year old daughter.

    The District Court’s views are that the blows should not be judged as abuse.

    The reactions to the verdict came immediately.

    A faulty verdict. I expect that it is going to be changed in the appeal, says Göran Harnesk, general secretary for Children’s rights in the Society (Bris), to the Telegram Bureau.

    According to the District Court, the 54 yr old father from Skåne, has smacked his daughter’s bottom on several occasions. But the corrections have not been sufficiently long lasting and intense for him to be punished. The pain has not been sufficiently serious, according to the Court. Göran Harnesk thinks it is the wrong way to reason.

    Zero tolerance is what it is about. A child can feel bad even if it doesn’t feel physical pain. It is the belittling that is decisive, he says.

    Convincing impression
    The judge and one of the lay-judges gave dissenting opinions and wanted to sentence the father to fines for assault to a lesser degree. However, the Court was unanimous in acquitting the girl’s 42-year old mother, who admitted that she had “flicked” her on the head on one occasion when she was stubborn. That, according to the verdict, does not meet the level of punishable abuse.

    It was the girl who spontaneously started telling a nurse about her punishments when she attended her five year health examination. I a video filmed questioning the girl said “Daddy has smacked me on my bottom so it hurt when he had come home from work and was very angry. …Also Mamma hit me on my head once so it hurt.”

    According to the District Court the girl gave a mature and convincing impression. Her parents have explained their actions by the girl’s stubbornness.

    Clear legislation
    The Children’s ombudsman (CO) Lena Nyberg is not allowed to comment on particular cases, but she points out that Sweden has a very clear legislation concerning child abuse.

    – Adults are not allowed to use physical punishment or violence towards children.
    The CO deems that there is the need for a new information campaign about adult’s violence towards children like the one that was staged when the anti-smacking law was passed in 1979.

    – Now there is a new generation of parents who perhaps need to be informed that it is forbidden and what they should do instead of using violence when the feel that they are not on top of the situation, Nyberg says.

    The Telegram Bureau was unsuccessful in reaching the prosecutor, but the lawyer Hans Hulthén, who represented the girl, has told the Skåne Daily that he is considering an appeal to the Court of Appeal.

    Facts: Previous acquittal was overturned

    In 2004 a man was acquitted by the Varberg District Court, in spite of the fact that he had smacked and pushed his 15-year old stepdaughter. The verdict was changed in the Court of Appeal and the man was sentenced to fines for petty abuse.

    Smacking is prohibited in Sweden since 1979. From 1980 to 2000 it seems that the number of children who were smacked declined. Since then the numbers have been on the increase. According to an investigation made by the University of Karlstad and the Children’s home Charity, 1,1 percent of the parents who were interviewed in 2000 admitted that they had smacked their child. In 2006 the number was 2.3 percent.

    During the first half of this year there were 714 police notifications about abuse of small children, according to the National Council for Crime Prevention. The reports have been increasing for several years.


    Email from Ruby Harrold-Claesson – 7 November 2007

    Dear All,

    In case you haven’t seen the YouTube videos “Deconstructing America” I would like to bring them to your attention.

    The American society faces the same problems that we have had in Sweden since the beginning of the 1970’s under Olof Palme and his social democrats and that you are seeing more and more of in New Zealand – the removal of parental authority, banning of critical lawyers, the child care industry etc.

    See Deconstructing America Part 1

    and Deconstructing America Part 2

    Pleasant viewing!

    Sincerely

    Ruby
    http://www.nkmr.org/english/


    Email from Ruby Harrold-Claesson – 14 March 2007

    Dear All,

    Here an interesting article with comments from the Daily Mail.

    The terror aged ten: Asbo for boy who drinks, smokes pot, and steals

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=441819

    This is the kind of indisciplined children – or rather child thugs –
    that New Zealand will have to deal with if mixed up good old Sue
    Bradford’s bill is passed. I’m sure you remember Roger Lord’s article
    “The children are embarrassing Sweden,
    http://www.nkmr.org/english/the_children_are_embarrassing_sweden.htm,
    and Linda Skugge’s article ” We are bringing up a generation of
    monsters”
    http://www.nkmr.org/english/we_are_bringing_up_a_generation_of_monsters.htm.

    Dont give up hope, miracles still can happen.

    I’ll be praying for you.

    Ruby


    Email from Ruby Harrold-Claesson – March 2007

    Swedish children safer?
    http://www.ombudsnet.org/enoc/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=9382&flag=news

    This article “The facts of the steps taken by Sweden to discourage the use of physical punishment of children” was created by Carla Guy “carlaguy” at the Families Commission on July 20, 2006 at 16:34 – the day after I arrived in New Zealand – and it was first published at:
    http://www.acya.org.nz/site_resources/library/Documents/Other_Resources/Swedish_children_safer.doc

    At the end of the article they published the link to the Norwegian article about me, with the title: “Wrong skin colour made her unsuitable”
    http://www.sfm.no/Arkiv-2005/Art-Jan-05/14.01.2005-RHClaesson.htm

    However, they omitted to inform the public about another article in the same newsmedia:
    “Strong reaction due to article in sfm.no about Swedish lawyer”
    http://www.sfm.no/Arkiv-2005/Art-Jan-05/14.01.2005-Diskriminering.htm

    To start with, it is very obvious that the person who wrote the article lacks scientific skills. She has three footnotes – all of them referring to the same publication by Joan Durrant, the ideological advocate and propagandist. A scientist writes the information once then the next time the publication is referred to he/she writes: “See note XX supra” or “Durrant op. cit. (note 1)”

    Also, there are so many inaccuracies in the Families Commission’s article it is embarrassing.

    Firstly “carlaguy” writes: “She is being brought to New Zealand by the fundamental Christian organisation, Family Integrity, (…)”. In fact, it was “Section59 Coalition”.

    Then to her points:
    [1] – “Sweden implemented the change New Zealand is considering over 50 years ago, in 1957.”

    Rebuttal: Anyone with basic knowledge in Maths can see that 1957 to 2006 does not add up to “over 50 years ago”.

    [2] – “Since 1957 in Sweden, parents charged with assaulting their children have gone through the investigation and prosecution system in the same way they would if they had assaulted an adult with the added scrutiny that any action taken would have to be demonstrably in the child’s best interest.”

    Rebuttal: So, she claims that it is in an 11 yr old’s best interest that his father between Autumn 1997 – June 2000 was prosecuted and sentenced for forcing the boy to take a shower.

    [3] – “A parent in Sweden is extremely unlikely to be convicted of assault if they merely smacked a child. To be convicted first the offence would have to be detected and reported. The police have full discretion to act in the child or the public’s best interest and to determine whether or not a reported assault warranted investigation. Any investigation would have to yield sufficient evidence to show that a criminal assault had occurred. A decision to proceed would have to be demonstrably in the child’s best interest (the benefits of proceeding must outweigh the potential damage). The prosecutor would have to believe that the evidence will support a conviction and that prosecution would be a better route that summary punishment or a waiver of prosecution. Finally, a judge would have to be convinced that the assault took place and that the child’s best interests would be served by punishing the parent.”

    Rebuttal: Cf Point 2 above and the Case Law I presented to the Select Committee.

    [4] – “There has been no increase in the number of parents drawn into the Swedish criminal justice system for minor assaults in the past 25 years.”

    Rebuttal: Before 1978 no parent would have been drawn before the police and prosecutor like the priest who had slapped his 16-yr old daughter. (See Case 1 in my Case Law). Deborah Coddington quoted Prof. Christian Diesen in her article “Anti-smack campaign fails to pack a punch”, (http://subs.nzherald.co.nz/author/story.cfm?a_id=271&ObjectID=10393619). Diesen said that there are “7000 reports of child abuse per year in Sweden, but only 10 % are prosecuted.” These are statistics from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.
    Diesen says “only 10% are prosecuted.” He wants to see more prosecutions – even if the parents should be found not guilty.

    Recent statistics show that there are 11 000 reports of child abuse per year in Sweden and that there has been a 14% increase between 2005 – 2006. See http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0702/S00378.htm

    [5] – “In 1979 a statement was added to the Parents Code which explicitly prohibited corporal punishment.”

    Rebuttal: Imagine calling a law “a statement”!

    [6] – “Sue Bradford’s Bill does NOT introduce a ban on corporal punishment – civil or otherwise”

    Rebuttal: But that is exactly what Bradford herself has said.

    [7] – “In Sweden parenting education is encouraged and promoted, with parents actively encouraged to seek help with child management difficulties and to learn about alternative methods of discipline. Most parents participate in parent education and support programmes.”

    Rebuttal: There was no such program, despite the promises that were made. Instead there have been coercive methods, through the police, the prosecutors, the social workers and the criminal and administrative courts.

    In recent years there have been private initiatives: New method helps parents regain parental authority http://www.nkmr.org/english/new_method_helps_parents_regain_parental_authority.htm

    [8] – “Public support for physical punishment has declined since the early 80s. This has been most noticeable among the younger generation of Swedish parents”

    Rebuttal: Parents have either to comply or face charges, fines and prison sentences and see their children removed from their homes and placed in foster homes where they will REALLY be abused. Strange enough, what is called child abuse, had a 14 % increase between 2005 – 2006.

    [9] – “Over the past 20 years in Sweden there has been more use of care and support measures put in place with families in their homes. These measures are designed to improve parenting support and skills and prevent family breakdown and family violence. This reflects the country’s attitude to improving the quality of life for children and families and respecting their rights. It’s important to know that support people are assigned to many families who are under stress, and when children are removed from their homes this often means that the whole family is removed to a special facility that provides 24 hour support and assistance to families.”

    Rebuttal: Helping families is not the rule, but the exception to the rule. On Nov. 16, 2001, the former Social Affairs minister, Lars Enqvist, said in a Radio interview:
    “Even if 20% of the children who are placed [in foster homes] are orphans (…) I know that many are placed despite the fact that there ought to an alternative for them to remain at home if they could be get support to the family, to mother or father and the children, like the Law of the Social services envisages. It is so simple that one really has to fight for the municipalities to invest money on that.”

    [10] – “Research shows that since the early 80s to 1995, the number of children in Sweden coming into care has dropped by over a quarter, youth crime has remained the same, and youth alcohol, drug use, rape and suicide rates have all decreased”

    Rebuttal: Cf. above.

    [11] – “Around one child a month dies at the hands of a parent or caregiver in New Zealand. In Sweden, the average annual deaths attributable to child abuse for the past 30 years or so has been less than one every four years.”

    Rebuttal: See “Step-parents abuse children to death more often”
    http://www.nkmr.org/english/step_parents_abuse_children_to_death_more_often.htm
    The authors clearly state that 258 children under the age of 16 were killed by their parents between 1965 and 1999, ie 7,6 children per year. See also
    The Swedish Myth: The Corporal Punishment Ban and Child Death – Chris Beckett http://www.storesonline.com/members/846699/uploaded/Child_deaths_in_Sweden.pdf and
    Two episodes from the New Zealand smacking debate http://www.nkmr.org/english/sue_bradfords_bull.htm

    [12] – ” It is important to remember that the Swedish legal system, and their child welfare and child protection services operate very differently to those in New Zealand and care needs to be taken when trying to compare statistics and other information.”

    Rebuttal: I agree with that statement 100 %.

    Finally, please read Prof. Jacob Sundberg’s ‘The Trip to Nowhere’ http://www.nkmr.org/english/the_trip_to_nowhere.htm.


    Email from Ruby Harrold-Claesson – March 2007 – Youtube: Child Services Abduction Video

    Youtube: Child Services Abduction Video.
    Friday, 09.03.2007, 01:06pm (GMT12)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLhHI1t8wEI

    How Norway and Sweden Uplift Children

    Please support the NKMR/NCHR’s work for the right to protection for private and family life in the nordic countries

    Thanks for bringing this sordid Norwegian case to the attention of the New Zealand public.

    More info:

    The spokesman for the Organisation for Foster Children in Norway has criticised the publication of the taking of the two children, 8 and 11 yrs of age, into state care in the following words: “The parents only damage the children when they publish films showing the children being taken by force by the Child protective services (Barnevernet).”

    “The children can be stigmatised, and that can follow then later in life”, Secretary of State Kjell Erik Øie told the newspaper.

    The Organisation for Foster Children in Norway supports the Government’s reaction. The spokesman means that such films can be very traumatising.

    For more information please see the Norwegian URL:

    http://www.p4.no/story.aspx?id=220246

    And listen to the radio http://www.p4.no/story.aspx?id=220246#

    This is so typical, the government and the organisation are trying to claim that the publication of the film is traumatising for the children. They are obviously incapable of seeing that Barnevernet’s actions towards the children are the very things that are traumatising for them.

    A tiny reflection: This Norwegian Case has been spread around the world in the space of a few days. Imagine if the Internet had existed during the Second World War, the Jews would have been able to expose the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis and perhaps the Holocaust might have been stopped before it became so extensive.

    Ruby Harrold-Claesson

    Lawyer

    President of the NKMR/NCHR

    http://www.nkmr.org


    Email from Ruby Harrold-Claesson — 22 February 2007

    Dear All,

    My deepest sympathy to the children and parents of New Zealand on Sue
    Bradford’s Bill passing the second reading. However, there’s still hope
    for the third reading.

    Bradford claims that she wants to reduce child abuse, but in fact she
    has opened a pipeline for child abuse. The Swedish anti-smacking law did
    not prevent child abuse or murders, but it made all parents insecure in
    their parenting roll, created badly behaved children and made criminals
    out of good parents who smacked their children when words and
    admonitions were insufficient to prevent certain behaviour.

    It is imperative that a CYF complaints authority be established. We do
    not have any such body in Sweden; we have the Parliamentary Ombudsman
    (JO) but it is a “toothless paper tiger”. I try to avoid making
    complaints to JO because the result is often just “criticism” and when
    the complaint is not investigated that gives carte blanche to the faulty
    bureaucrats. I have also reported several social workers to the police,
    but they are never prosecuted for their wrong doings.

    Here is a case that I have reported in the nordic section of the NKMR
    web site. I have had contacts with the journalist and only this morning
    I had a long telephone conversation with the mother.
    Her five year old son was abducted by the social services in November
    last year. The child had a scratch on his neck and the staff at his
    day-care center asked him what had happened. He told them that the
    string of his little sister’s toy that was hanging from the door frame
    caught around his neck when ran past it. The staff member was not
    satisfied with the boy’s answer so she asked him a few more times what
    had happened then in the end he said “Mom tried to choke me”.
    Everyone at the day-care knew that he was always making up things yet
    they turned a feather into a poultry farm! They made a report to the
    social services and they in turn contacted the police. The parents were
    given half an hour’s notice to report to the police station and, not
    suspecting anything they took their three children with them. Two
    officers asked the little boy to accompany them and the parents told him
    to go with them. They led him away and when the parents finally were
    informed of what was happening the mother offered them to remove her
    from their home and let the boy remain with his father. The social
    workers chose to place the little boy in a foster home among total
    strangers and his parents weren’t allowed to see him for 15 days.
    The doctor who examined the boy said that his first explanation – and
    that of his parents – was the most likely cause of the scratch he had on
    his neck, but the social workers and the administrative courts decided
    to take the boy into care. The police scrapped their investigation and
    the child was released to his parents when the administrative district
    court with two votes against two decided to release him after 43 days in
    custody. The verdict weighed in favour of the reunification of the boy
    with his family. It was the chief justice of the court who tipped the
    balance.

    After he was released the little boy asked his mother why she didn’t
    come when he had called for her from his hiding place under a desk at
    the police station. That is gross child abuse committed by those whose
    duty is to protect children from harm.

    The parents and the boy are completely traumatised and they intend to
    sue the social workers – which I encourage them to do. Their lawyer has
    informed them that he will not represent them against the municipality
    because he will have to live and work there for many years to come.
    That’s what I call being spineless!

    Sue Bradford is a danger for New Zealand, as you all so rightly have
    pointed out so many times. It is so easy to break down and destroy, but
    extremely difficult to rebuild and reinstate values lost.

    Sincerely

    Ruby


    Email from Ruby Harrold-Claesson — 3 February 2007

    From: Ruby Harrold-Claesson
    Subject: Norwegian version of the best interest of the child

    Hi Everyone,

    This little message is to inform you about a video about a Norwegian case of
    forcibly taking children into public care that has been posted on YouTube. A
    team of social workers carried the kicking and screaming children to the
    waiting car. The adults resisted but to no avail. It was a brutal abduction
    of the children. They will be traumatised for life.

    Here is the URL:
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLhHI1t8wEI

    Similar methods are employed in Sweden, but mostly they abduct the children
    at school or at their day-care – to prevent complications with the parents –
    and the parents are informed afterwards.

    See for eg “Enfuriated mother attacked social worker”
     http://www.nkmr.org/english/enfuriated_mother_attacked_socialworker.htm

    Sincerely
    Ruby


    Email from Ruby Harrold-Claesson — 25 July 2005

    to the Blog “Big News” 25 July 2005

    Ruby Harrold-Claesson said…
    Child protection lobbyists and the social services usually stress the importance of “protecting children from violence”. This was one of the arguments used to justify the smacking ban in Sweden. Only six (6) of the 268 Swedish parliamentarians voted against the law. Three abstained. They had looked beyond the façade and found that there was a great deal of totalitarianism behind the law.

    During the consultation period several important organs of the state e g the State Prosecutor, the Regional Prosecutor in Östergötland and others voiced their doubts and fears. For more info see THE EFFECTS OF THE SWEDISH ANTI-SMACKING LAW – CONSULTATION PAPER at
    http://www.nkmr.org/english/anti_smacking_law_consultation_paper.htm. Some important organs of the state were very negative to the proposed law because of the indoctrination in violence that permeates the society in the Newscasts, films etc. Some even meant that the “administrative violence” that would be the result of the law should not be taken lightly. In fact, children who are removed from their parents care because mother or father has smacked them are severely punished by the state – because separation from their parents, siblings and other members of their family and their home environment is devastating for the children.

    Here is a case that I am working on:

    On October 16, 2003, the social council in the southern Sweden municipality Svalöv decided to take seven brothers and sisters into public care. The seven children were born between 1990 – 1999. Their father, Mats Nilsson, had been accused of “disturbance of peace” of his children, for eg pulling their ear, taking them by the back of their necks holding their arms or the like. He was arrested and confined pending trial. The mother, Charlotte Ydström-Nilsson, was not accused of any misdemeanors, yet five of the children were immediately placed in foster care. The two boys who were not taken immediately were at home because they were sick. One of them was suffering from ear-ache and fever and the other, the middle child who was born with myelocele thus an invalid confined to his wheel-chair, had only just returned from the hospital after an operation. The social workers promised the mother that they would let the sick youngsters remain with her but a few hours later they returned with an ambulance and transported them to separate destinations.

    On November 27, 2003, the father was completely acquitted in the Criminal court. However, the social council proceeded in the care case and on December 18, 2003, three weeks after his acquittal, the Administrative County court ruled in favour of the social council and against the children and their parents. On April 21, 2004, the Administrative court of Appeal in Gothenburg confirmed the ruling of the lower court. The lawyers did not appeal the case to the Supreme Administrative court.

    On June 30, 2004 the parents applied to the social council to have the care order lifted. The mother, who was then pregnant with child no. eight has had to keep out of the way of the social workers for fear that they would take the baby at birth and she has had to avoid meeting her other children. The baby was born in September 2004 and the mother moved to a neighbouring municipality, yet on January 19, 2005 the social council that decided to take the couple’s seven children into care decided to take the newborn baby into care. However, it is most unlikely that they will ever find the mother and her baby.

    The couple has since then been fighting the Swedish bureaucracy to get their seven children back from state care. The most recent verdicts concerning the family were delivered on March 8, resp. March 31, 2005 in the Administrative County Court and June 28, 2005 in the Administrative Court of Appeal in Gothenburg. In these cases, the judges ruled in favour of the social services viz against the parents and their children.

    Do you really want cases like this one and many others that I have worked with in New Zealand?

    The anti-smacking lobby claims that children of “smacking parents” are violated, will lose their self confidence and will become violent adults. Why the exaggeration? Isn’t is strange that all those generations of children who have been smacked – and even beaten – are not necessarily mentally damaged or violent individuals? In fact, statistics show and a former head of penitentiaries in Sweden, Mrs AnnBritt Grunewald has confirmed, that the majority of the prison interns in Sweden have been in the foster home system.

    Also, it must be taken into account that violence is used to resolve differences between individuals and States eg the war in Irak. And, for those who would like to believe that Sweden is a peaceful society because of the anti-smacking law should read Prof. Robert Larzelere’s findings in Sweden’s smacking ban: more harm than good http://www.christian.org.uk/pdfpublications/sweden_smacking.pdf

    For more information about the Swedish/Nordic experiences see The NCHR’s Article Archives section “Bringing up children and youths” http://www.nkmr.org/english/archives_4_bringing_up_children_and_youth.htm

    Ruby Harrold-Claesson
    Attorney-at-law
    President of the NCHR/NKMR

    UPDATE
    email from Ruby Harrold-Claesson 18 October 2006

    “The Verdict came by fax today. The court refuses to let the children go. I’m so disappointed for those poor parents.” “Many thanks for your kind thoughts and your expressions of sympathy for Mats Nilsson and his wife Charlotte Ydström-Nilsson and their seven children in unnecessary foster care. Even their eighth child, their two year old, is on the losing end. She has been deprived daily loving contact with her father and her siblings. These two years – or how much longer this cruel injustice will last – can never be compensated.

    “Until October 16, 2003, the Nilsson family was a big, happy family living at one and the same address. On that day the family was broken up and six of the children were placed at one address, the seventh, a boy who is handicapped by Spina Bifida, was placed at a second address and mother and father were left alone. Then baby came along on Sept. 13, 2004, and mother and father had to separate – mother went “under ground” to protect the baby. Now the ten family members are living at four different addresses. That is Family Care Swedish style!

    “The father called me four times yesterday. He had difficulty hiding his disappointment. The only thing we can do now is appeal and hope that there is some justice somewhere in the Swedish Administrative courts.

    “OBS! It’s cases like this one that will become a reality for many parents in NZ if Sue Bradford gets her Bill through.”

  • 31 December 2006 – 15 February 2007

      http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0702/S00292.htm

         First step for CYF complaints authority

    Thursday, 15 February 2007, 4:35 pm
    Press Release: United Future NZ Party
    Media statement For immediate release Thursday, 15 February 2007

    Dyson announces first step for CYF complaints authority

    The United Future deputy leader is delighted with the announcement from the Minister for Child, Youth and Family (CYF) that officials have begun work towards the establishment of an independent complaints authority for the service.

    “Following the advocacy and hard work undertaken by (Judy Turner), I have requested my officials to investigate a complaints authority for Child, Youth and Family as in my view the member has proven that it would have merit,” said Ruth Dyson.

    Mrs Dyson also confirmed “further work on such a complaints authority will continue with the participation of United Future.”

    Mrs Turner said she is overjoyed at the announcement, but that the real winners of such an authority will be New Zealand families and children in particular.

    “Finally the first steps are being taken to establish an independent entity to ensure CYF becomes accountable to New Zealand families.

    “I look forward to pushing ahead with further work on the issue. I am also delighted that the hard work put in to sustaining a positive working relationship between United Future and the Government, has again led to a likely result that will benefit a large number of New Zealand families and children,” said Mrs Turner.


    15 February 2007 – Family First – Children’s Needs More Important Than Their Rights

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0702/S00205.htm

    UNICEF Report Highlights Children’s Needs More Important Than Their Rights

    The UNICEF report released overnight is of no surprise to pro-family organisations who have been concerned about the rise of children’s rights, while at the same time children’s basic needs are not being met.

    “Recent reports of mothers being discharged from hospital immediately after giving birth, the under-funding of crucial services like Plunketline and HIPPY, and the lack of follow-up regarding immunisations for children are all examples of basic core services which children are missing out on,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

    “The claimed link between smacking and child abuse has also been dealt another blow, with the UNICEF report quite correctly stating “the likelihood of a child being injured or killed is associated with poverty, single-parenthood, low maternal education, low maternal age at birth, poor housing, weak family ties, and parental drug or alcohol abuse.””

    Mr McCoskrie says the proposed banning of smacking will have no effect on these factors at all, and simply diverts attention away from the real issues.

    “Our high teenage birth rate – now the 2nd highest in the OECD and almost double the OECD average – proves the failure of groups like Family Planning and the supposed “safe sex”message,” says Mr McCoskrie. “It is now time we expected wise decisions from our young people and taught them the benefits of delaying sexual activity.”

    As the report states: “Pregnancy has become a significant problem: giving birth at too young an age is now associated with wideranging disadvantage for both mother and child -including a greater likelihood of dropping out of school, of having no or low qualifications, of being unemployed or low-paid, and of living in poor housing conditions.”

    The breakdown of the family and its effect is also clearly evident in the report. The UK and US have the highest rates of children living in single-parent families and step-families, resulting in the worst overall rates of behaviour and risk-taking activities such as obesity, substance abuse, violence and sexual risk-taking.

    “With the OECD average of single-parent families being 12.7%, and NZ’s recent Census showing 30% of families with children being led by a single-parent, the effect of neglecting the family structure and its effect on our children is plain to see,” says Mr McCoskrie


    9 February 2007 – Family Integrity – Parenting is Bradford’s Target

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0702/S00101.htm

    Friday, 9 February 2007, 9:32 am
    Press Release: Family Integrity

    Parenting is Bradford’s Target

    Has anyone read the Justice and Electoral Select Committee’s report on Bradford’s Bill to ban smacking?

    It appears to actually extend the use of smacking and other forms of reasonable force into areas many parents wouldn’t have thought of before. But the one area where responsible parents should definitely use reasonable force in the training and discipline of their children is the one area the Committee specifically ruled out of bounds: the correction of children.

    The Committee has decided not to repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act as Bradford’s Bill wanted. Instead they’ve rewritten Section 59. In it they outline four areas wherein reasonable force can legitimately be used by parents. Now remember, Bradford’s objection to Section 59 was that it allows parents a defence of reasonable force when correcting their children, but that is the only motivation Section 59 allows. This new rewrite, however, allows reasonable force – smacking – for a whole range of other motivations, but not for correction.

    According to the rewrite of Section 59, parents can smack their children if it will stop them from an act of swearing or stealing. But if the child refuses to apologise for swearing or to give back the stolen item, the parent cannot smack or use any other kind of reasonable force, including time out, for this would be deemed as corrective, a motivation and purpose of reasonable force the rewrite specifically forbids.

    So we see that Bradford was never really interested in stopping parents from smacking or using reasonable force with their children. It is parents correcting their children that she objects to. It is apparently her goal to stop parents from performing one of their core tasks as parents: correcting their children’s behaviour.


    8 February 2007 – United Future Press Release – Turner exposes CYFS crisis

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0702/S00099.htm

    Turner exposes CYFS crisis
    Thursday, 8 February 2007, 2:19 pm
    Press Release: United Future NZ Party
    Thursday, 8 February 2007
    Turner exposes CYFS crisis

    United Future family spokesperson Judy Turner today revealed the entire oversight panel in Tauranga that reviews the work of the Child, Youth and Family Service in the city has been sacked – by the Tauranga CYFS site manager.

    “I’m informed this extraordinary action was taken because the manager thought the panel was too confrontational and too critical of CYFS staff,” said Mrs Turner.

    “The job of the Care & Protection Resource Panel is to advise social workers responding to notifications, and to ensure that the standard of social work practice is sufficient to ensure the safety of children.

    “The panel has recently criticised the decision by site management to withhold some notifications from the panel, where the decision by social workers was to close the notification.

    “The panel believed that this may lead to unsafe practises for children. Even when an attempt was made to rectify this concern, the panel still ended up being expected to rubber stamp cases that had been already closed, contrary to the Act, which requires the panel to provide advice on all notifications.

    “The problem seems to be driven by a government policy that requires there to be no unallocated cases.

    “This sees social workers focusing on output rather than outcomes based on quality social work. Even once an intervention has happened, the department seems to change gear and focus on their new policy of strongly encouraging foster parents to assume the care of the children under the Care of Children Act, a policy driven by budgetary aims rather than the best interests of children.

    “The Tauranga Resource Panel certainly seemed very concerned about inadequate social work in many cases.

    “I am concerned that the site manager has been able to fire the entire panel against the Department’s own guidelines which state that a third of the panel must be retained.

    “Surely we don’t want to see these panels muzzled in any way that ends up making a mockery of the whole process.

    “This is surely further evidence of the urgent need for an independent complaints authority to look into complaints against CYFS,” said Mrs Turner.

    ENDS

    Contact: Judy Turner MP
    Tel: 04 470 6992
    Cell: 021 309803


    31 Dec 2006 – Family First – Bradford’s Smacking Ban is most anti-family Bill before Parl. in 2007

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0701/S00006.htm

    http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/index.cfm/Media_Centre/Media_Releases/Releases/31_12_06_Family_First_releases_Top_Five_Pro_Family_Policies_for_2007.html/31_12_06_Family_First_releases_Top_Five_Pro_Family_Policies_for_2007.pdf
    MEDIA RELEASE
    31 DECEMBER 2006

    Bradford’s Smacking Ban is most anti-family Bill before Parliament in 2007

    Family First releases Top Five Pro-Family Policies for 2007
    Green MP Sue Bradford’s Bill to ban smacking and parental correction has been identified as the most anti-family piece of legislation which will come before MP’s in 2007.

    Family First has released its Top Five Pro-Family Policies for 2007 and at the top of the list is the rejection of Bradford’s Bill to ban smacking and reasonable correction by parents.

    “To threaten to criminalise the 95%-plus of good parents who are doing a great job and who are using techniques of parenting and guidance proved beneficial throughout the generations before, is a slap in the face to NZ families,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. “MP’s need to support and encourage parents, not expose them to prosecution and unnecessary interference by Social Workers.”

    Also included on the list of pro-family policies is better recognition of full-time parents who sacrifice careers and income to raise their children full-time; dealing with the real issues of child abuse with tougher policies on drug and alcohol abuse which are also major contributors to domestic violence, juvenile crime, and gang activity; removal of the current Chief Censor and the toughening of censorship laws; and the strengthening of families with policies which encourage stability and best environment for children through marriage and an emphasis on the important role of fathers.

    “The environment in which we raise our children sets the scene for the NZ of tomorrow. At the moment, parents are finding our society extremely counter-cultural to raising children,” says Mr McCoskrie. “These policies will start to address some of the major concerns of NZ parents.”

    5 Top Pro-Family Policies for 2007
    1. Rejection of Sue Bradford’s Bill to ban smacking and parental correction.
    Invest in positive parenting programmes which educate and support parents e.g. Parents Inc, HIPPY, Brainwave Trust etc. Identify and target the actual causes of child abuse without penalising the huge proportion of great parents.

    2. Recognition and Financial Support for Full-Time Parents
    The Government continues to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the Childcare and Pre-school Industry yet refuses to acknowledge the huge numbers of parents who sacrifice income and career to raise their children full-time. These parents should be acknowledged, resourced, and encouraged – not told to become economic units by getting back into the workforce.

    A recent Massey University study of 1300 people showed that only 2% of respondents approved of women working full-time when they had children under school age. Almost half believed that a pre-schooler suffered and family life suffered when the mother had a part-time job. Having two fulltime working parents is not in the best interests of young children. Yet, for many parents, they have no choice.

    Why do we pay ‘professional care-givers’ to care for our kids yet refuse to acknowledge the most natural caregivers – the parents themselves. We must invest in immediate funding of Plunket Helpline, along with fieldwork organisations working with mums and dads, especially first time parents.

    3. Tougher Policies on Drugs and Alcohol Abuse
    MP’s ‘dropped the ball’ in this area when they rejected the Bill to raise the Drinking Age. The Drinking Culture has been fed by the proliferation of retailers pushing the sale of alcohol (and therefore more available to teenagers), the extensive advertising afforded by the alcohol industry, and the poor role modeling by sports and media personalities. Much tougher laws on liquor licensing are urgently needed, along with major restrictions on alcohol advertising.

    A clear message also needs to be sent from Parliament regarding Drugs, including Marijuana, and a ban on Party Pills. Sufficient resources must be urgently made available to crush the ‘P’ industry which is destroying lives and families.

    4. Change the Censor – Toughen the Censorship Laws
    We have allowed an increasing and unacceptable level of violence and sexual content into our media in the name of free speech. The Chief and Deputy Censor have been responsible for the release of brutal rape and sexually violent films all at a time in which domestic violence, demand for Women’s Refuges, and violent and sexual crime is on the increase.

    There are also a huge numbers of hard core obscene DVDs that are cleared for adult (R18) home viewing ‘entertainment’ every month which are easily accessible to young people, as evidenced by the number of teenagers who have played Grant Theft Auto, despite its R18 status. Criminal activities such as rape, sexual violation of corpses, and degrading, demeaning and dehumanising treatment of women have been reduced to supposed ‘entertainment’ by these films.

    We cannot continue to ‘feed’ this material into our community without seeing it manifested at some level. We need Censors and a Censorship Board who will act in the best interests of all NZ’ers and families.

    5. Strengthen marriages, families, and the role of fathers
    The evidence is quite clear – Marriage is good for a nation. Scientific research is unanimous on a number of conclusions regarding marriage – that marriage increases the likelihood that fathers have good relationships with their children and lowers the risk of alcohol and substance abuse, domestic violence and child abuse.

    Conversely, parental divorce or non-marriage appears to increase children’s risk of school failure, the risk of suicide, psychological distress, and most significantly, delinquent and criminal behaviour.

    So many young offenders are coming from families where there is family breakdown, the absence of a father and parenting difficulties, not to mention violence and unemployment issues.

    According to The Heritage Foundation, an influential US research institute, an analysis of social science literature over 30 years shows that the rise in violent crime parallels the rise in families abandoned by fathers. Too many children are growing up in NZ without their dad actively involved, and with little expectation from the State for this to change.

    We need to encourage and strengthen marriage, including pre-marriage counselling and Marriage Centres used successfully in Australia. We need to hold fathers accountable to their responsibilities, both financially and in terms of involvement in raising their children.

    ENDS

    For more information contact Family First:

    Bob McCoskrie JP – National Director
    Tel. 09 261 2426 | Mob. 027 55 555 42
    email. bob@familyfirst.org.nz | www.familyfirst.org.nz
    P.O. Box 276-133, Manukau City, Auckland, New Zealand

  • Drury Christian School Principal Ron Bagrie on Corporal punishment

    Corporal punishment

    Drury Christian School Principal Ron Bagrie explained his school’s corporal punishment policy, under which children are recommended to their parents as needing to be smacked for rule-breaking at school.
    Click here to watch the video     This link does not work – use the link below:

    Click on this page:

    http://tvnz.co.nz/view/tvone_minisite_story_skin/995128

    Then look for the listing above. It should be the first one.

  • Links


    Please also take time to visit our friends…

    http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/

    CYFs watch
         Section59.blogspot.
         www.politik.co.nz

    http://watchingcyfs.wordpress.com/2007/02/

    NCHR -The Nordic Committee for Human Rights

    A Reasonable Approach to Discipline

    Family First Lobby
    Society for the Promotion of Community Standards (S.P.C.S.)
    Dr Paul Poelstra – Corporal Punishment of Children

    www.reformationtestimony.org.nz

    World Corporal Punishment Research

    Families First (UK)

    Family & Youth Concern (Family Education Trust) (UK)

    Fight Child Protection Services False Accusations

    World Congress of Families

    Find out what your elected representatives are doing in New Zealand’s Parliament

    The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society

    Every Blogger Counts

    Sir Humphreys Blog

    http://cyfswatchnz.wordpress.com

    KiwiSmithBlog  

  • 30 October 2006 – 21 December 2006


    21 December 2006 – Crimes Act amendment smacked down AND POLL

    AND POLL

    http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/563200/939668

    Dec 21, 2006

    The family law section of the Law Society says proposed amendments to Section 59 of the Crimes Act are inadequate.

    A select committee decided to revise the anti-smacking bill in November by repealing Section 59 and replacing it with a section allowing the use of reasonable force in some situations.

    Section chairman Simon Maude says the society has been mulling over the changes to the proposed bill and has decided they make things worse.

    He says the proposal does nothing to assist police or the courts in defining what levels of force are allowed.


    15 December 2006 – Family First – Children’s Needs, not Rights, should be the Focus

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0612/S00194.htm


    Children’s Needs, not Rights, should be the Focus
    Friday, 15 December 2006, 10:28 am
    Press Release: Family First
    Children’s Needs, not Rights, should be the Focus

    Bob McCoskrie –National Director Family First

    Parents have every right to be very nervous over recent media reports of cases involving the rise in Children’s Rights.

    The first warning shot was news of a teenager effectively ‘divorcing’ her parent because she didn’t like the family rules. The mother, in a letter to her local MP, listed reasons the daughter won under “unusual circumstances” to have guardianship placed with the court including the facts that the 16-year-old is given permission by her older sister to stay at friends’ houses on school nights when that would be denied by her mother.

    Otago University law faculty dean Mark Henaghan said the case is the consequence of the Care of Children Act (2005) which recognises children as independent entities rather than members of their families. The Act gives the wishes of children more prominence, removing age and maturity as factors in court decisions. Henaghan cites a case where a four-year-old’s views should have been taken into account in a family dispute, and believes there will be a rise in such cases.

    The report of a girl (well under the age of sexual consent) being sneaked off by her school to get contraceptives without any parental knowledge should be another warning.

    The girl’s stepmother only found the pills when she was cleaning out her stepdaughter’s locker. The label on the box of pills showed the girl’s name, care of the school, and one packet was dated back to when the girl was only 13. The parent, not surprisingly, felt a sense of absolute disbelief. The medical implications of being on the pill also concerned the family.

    And we have Sue Bradford’s anti-smacking Bill which sends a clear message to parents that they are no longer primary guardians of their children. The State and its agencies know better and parents who responsibly correct their children will become guilty of assault and criminalised.

    Ironically, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is constantly quoted as the catalyst for removing section 59, acknowledges the important role of parents in raising a child with appropriate direction, guidance, and correction.

    It recognises the right, and duty, of parents to provide direction and guidance in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child. Yet our new, and ironically named, Care of Children Act says that age and maturity should not be factors when considering the views of a child.

    Any parent knows that the capacity of a child is very different to the capacity of an adult. That’s why we have laws protecting children from sexual involvement and exploitation, driving vehicles, voting, drinking alcohol, certain purchases, watching violent and sexually explicit movies etc. That’s why we say “no pudding until you eat your peas”, and “get to bed now!” That’s why we need to train and correct children in a way that is different to how we deal with adults.

    A recently published book on children’s rights “From Innocents to Agents – Children and Children’s Rights in New Zealand” by Dr Michael Reid, previously a researcher with research and public policy think tank the Maxim Institute, is compelling.

    It highlights deep concerns around the politicisation of children’s rights.

    Dr Reid says that children are no longer being seen as innocent and vulnerable, but as full human beings needing support to assert rights to autonomy and independence.

    He warns that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is part of a wider attempt to redefine the family, and an “undermining of what some saw as oppressive parental rights to control children.”

    For example, Articles 15 and 16 of the Convention argue the right of a child to associate with others, the right to protection from interference, and the right to privacy. Yet what happens when children want to start dating, stay out late, engage in sexual activity, and view objectionable video games or movies at home? Dr Reid warns that “as the wider rights culture moved to uphold the child’s individual autonomy, this came – in the home setting at least – at the expense of a parental right to prohibit these practices.”

    Parents are right to be indignant about a government and state encroaching on ‘their turf’. Child abuse is truly awful but an increasing fixation with children’s rights will not reduce child abuse.
    Too many ‘concerned’ and ‘child-friendly’ organisations and governments are not only doing the worthy task of protecting children who are emotionally and physically vulnerable, but have adopted moral supremacy and appointed themselves as the experts on parenting and the well-being of children.

    In an attempt to protect children from the small minority of parents who are obviously unsuitable to hold the responsibilities of parenting, we are steam-rolling good parents who deserve the backing of the state – not undermining and potentially criminalising.

    A child’s rights should never be at the expense of the parental right to nurture, protect and set boundaries in a family setting. Rights of children have been shifted from simply protecting vulnerable children to granting them rights that are destructive to them, to good parenting practice, and to the welfare of the whole family in which they are being raised.

    The nurturing needs of children should be paramount. They’ll have plenty of rights, and responsibilities, to worry about when they become adults.

    ENDS


    28 November 2006 – The liberal establishment wants to ban smacking

    From: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anne_atkins/2006/11/post_716.html

    .
    .
    The liberal establishment wants to ban smacking, but it’s the parents we should trust on how to discipline children.

    The trouble with the

    debate on smacking is there has been excess of knee-jerk, emotional reaction and a paucity of logical, objective thought. In fact, there hasn’t really been a debate at all. Mostly contributions on the level of, “My mother walloped all of us and it never did us any harm,” or alternatively, “My father used to beat me really unfairly, and I’ve hated him ever since.”

    The voice I’ve heard most often from those campaigning on the subject runs something like this: “If you’d seen the distressing abuse I’ve seen, you wouldn’t hesitate to make hitting children a criminal offence.” It’s a powerful appeal. But it isn’t rational. Abusing children is already a criminal offence. If the law can’t stop it now, it won’t stop it if we make smacking illegal. But that’s not to say it won’t have any effect. It certainly will.

    But first we should decide on various principles of child rearing, one being whether or not we think incentives and disincentives are legitimate tools in the bringing up of children at all. There are some who think they are not. I have a very close friend who genuinely set out, when she started a family, with the view that any encouragement after a good deed was a form of bribery, and therefore somehow tacky. She would not cuddle, praise or enthuse about her children if they did something that pleased her, because she said they should be encouraged all the time. She certainly didn’t believe in “punishment”. You simply explain to children, that’s all. Just try it.

    I’m sorry to say that she was so ragged and exhausted after several children and several years of this ideology that she was yelling at her children all the time. She certainly punished them – but not with any method or system that enabled them to know when they were doing the right thing and would be rewarded, or how to avoid doing the wrong thing so they wouldn’t reap its unpleasant circumstances.

    The trouble with this beautiful theory is that it simply doesn’t work. None of us responds only to explanation. Would you really never break the speed limit or park on a double yellow if it was simply explained to you why you shouldn’t, but you knew there wouldn’t ever be adverse consequences for you? Why do we bother to get out of bed and go to work in the morning? Aren’t we all motivated by the incentive of the pay cheque and the disincentive of the sack? Would you go on buying Christmas presents for your loved one if he never even smiled at you to show you he was pleased, let alone thanked you and said how much he liked it?

    Reasoning is fine (“he likes it; he just isn’t very demonstrative”) but the encouragement is what makes it worth it. Similarly, explanations are good (“Tommy doesn’t like you spitting at him”), but it’s the discouragement that actually stops us.

    If we can’t agree on this point, actually there is no further debate. If you honestly believe calm reasoning is enough to bring children up to do good and avoid wrong, good luck to you. Don’t know how you’re going to train your dog, but never mind. You go your way and the rest of us will go ours, because most sane people recognise that saying, “Well done!” to a child to encourage the right behaviour, and, “I’m really not pleased with you!” to discourage the wrong, is necessary to reinforce the result we want. Information is not enough.

    Once this is established, the next question is what incentives and disincentives – or, to give them their politically incorrect names, what bribes and punishments – are most appropriate. And frankly, as long as they are both harmless and effective, I don’t think it matters. I potty-trained each of our children with a jar of olives (one for a wee, two for a poo). I would never have used sweets because they’re bad for them, but I wouldn’t criticise other parents for doing so if they want to. I think shouting is distressing and best avoided, and would always prefer something calm like the “naughty stair”.

    In this context, given that a punishment has to have a certain unpleasantness about it if it’s going to work, I can’t for the life of me see why we get in such a lather about a smack. I would sometimes give our children a choice. Once, when two of ours, aged four and five, had done something really naughty – they had broken up a door with a claw hammer – and yes, when quizzed, they knew perfectly well it was wrong – I knew they needed a pretty severe punishment. So I gave them the option of going to their room for an hour, or having a smack that would be over immediately – but I warned them it would be a pretty hard one. They briefly conferred and opted for the smack. Do we really want this to be illegal?

    And this raises a crucial distinction. Campaigners against smacking deliberately confuse the issue by calling it “hitting”. But hitting is very different. Hitting happens in the heat of the moment after a loss of control – indeed, some, like Penelope Leach, even say losing one’s rag is preferably to smacking “in cold blood”. This is a very wrong, even dangerous, idea to propound.

    Lashing out at a child in a temper, whether physically or verbally, is abuse. It is done for the benefit of the adult not the child, to relieve feelings rather than to discipline, and is far more likely to escalate into violence. It tends to be much more frightening, and is also likely to be humiliating. Smacking, properly used, is a controlled way of persuading your child that undesirable behaviour is not worth repeating. But if you prefer a “time out”, the loss of a treat, or ten minutes on the bottom step, that’s fine.

    The issue is not whether smacking is necessary to raise children. (Of course it isn’t.) The question is who is best qualified to decide. I believe it is parents, not politicians, who should rear their children – which is why the proposed change in the law is such a dreadful mistake. Not because we need to smack our children, but because we want them raised by the family, not the state.

    Some years ago, a father

    smacked his child several times in a dentist’s waiting room because she was getting hysterical about having her teeth attended to. He probably overstepped the mark (haven’t we all?) but at least, as a result, the dentist was able to fix the problem that had been keeping her awake every night with the pain. But alas, the father’s mistake was not hitting her too hard or too often (she’d recovered from that by the time she’d left the dentist’s chair), but doing it in public, where a social worker saw him and reported him. He was removed from the family for the next fortnight so the poor child had to spend Christmas without her daddy.

    I happened to speak to the mother a year or so later. Her husband had lost his teaching job; they’d had to sell their house, and they could no longer afford all the luxuries her daughter had loved – her piano lessons, her ballet classes. Her father upset her for a few minutes. The state has traumatised her, perhaps for life.


    23 November 2006 – Wanganui Chronicle – Borrows seeks change to smacking bill

    http://www.wanganuichronicle.co.nz/localnews/storydisplay.cfm?storyid=3710867&thesection=localnews&thesubsection=&thesecondsubsection=

    Borrows seeks change to smacking bill

    23.11.2006
    By MARY BRYAN

    AN AMENDMENT drawn up by Wanganui National MP Chester Borrows will take the fight against Green MP Sue Bradford’s total ban on smacking bill to the next stage.

    “The amendment has been checked by the president of the Law Commission Sir Geoffrey Palmer (a former Labour Prime Minister). I’m hopeful it will be accepted by Parliament.

    Common sense has to be listened to,” Mr Borrows told the Chronicle.

    Parliament’s second reading of the bill is expected in mid to late February, at which stage the amendment will be put for debate.

    National’s spokesperson on Ms Bradford’s bill to repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act, Mr Borrows was seconded onto the Justice Select Committee.

    Section 59 allows “reasonable force” (to be used against a child for the purpose of correction), and he is concerned that the Select Committee’s replacement clause does not allow smacking.
    “The replacement allows for restraint such as holding a child, or picking them up, but not for smacking.

    “I want to see the bill limit the degree of force which can be used for correction, and worded so that parents who should be prosecuted can be. But the bill needs to give protection to good parents who smack their children occasionally.

    “The protection needs to be written into the law. The public have a right to know with certainty and clarity the law they have to abide by.”

    Sue Bradford, he said, believed the police would not charge people for smacking their kids, but “Police Association president Greg O’Connor has made it clear the police will have to pursue offences that are disclosed”.

    Also the bill, as amended, did not take into account the 10 or so surveys that had been done, all of which had found New Zealanders did not want parents criminalised for smacking children.

    “As well as the surveys, I have spoken to a number of children, all of whom have said they would rather have a quick smack for doing something wrong than lose privileges. “With a smack, straight away the matter is dealt with and immediately and done with.”

    Meanwhile, Plunket would rather have seen a full repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act.

    “Plunket sees over 90 percent of babies born in New Zealand. As an organisation we called for repeal of Section 59 as a signal that violence against children will not be tolerated,” Kaye Crowther, New Zealand President, Royal New Zealand Plunket Society said.

    A Chronicle street poll yesterday found people were unanimous in their belief that smacks on the hands and legs as a way of keeping children safe were necessary at times.


    22 November 2006 – Family Integrity Press Release – Depriving Children of Clear Standards is Harmful

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0611/S00318.htm

    Depriving Children of Clear Standards is Harmful

    Wednesday, 22 November 2006, 9:57 am
    Press Release: Family Integrity

    Press Release
    For Immediate Distribution

    Depriving Children of Clear Standards is Harmful

    The Select Committee’s proposed replacement of Section 59 specifically says reasonable force is to be totally prohibited for the purpose of correcting children. Bradford has at last revealed her true intentions: that parents should be prevented by law from correcting their own children.

    In spite of Bradford’s consistent ranting against the use of force, this new Section 59 she and the Committee have come up with says three times that reasonable force can be used by parents to prevent their children from doing something. However nowhere is force allowed to make the child do something he should, to behave in a way the parents insist upon.

    Reasonable force can be used to stop some (but not all) behaviour the parent may want to stop, but nothing in this law allows parents to use reasonable force to get the child to behave in a way the parent requires.

    Part of parenting is teaching right and proper behaviour and speech, teaching right from wrong, good from bad, wise from unwise. Will this law allow parents to enforce standards such as: making the child apologise to anyone or to address elders by using “Mr” or “Mrs” or “Dr”, etc? Will parents be legally able to cause their children to conform to their standards of dress, grooming, speech and behaviour if the standard being set by the child cannot be called offensive or disruptive, but just not up to the standard required by the parents? Can parents legally correct children’s bad grammar or slang? Can parents stop their children from visiting a friend if going over there is not obviously harmful, is not a criminal offense, is not offensive or disruptive, but the parent simply thinks the other household is a bad influence? This Bill is totally unworkable. It supposedly allows a parent to use reasonable force to cause a child to cease offensive behaviour. But is this not how one corrects a child? First stop the unacceptable and then coach in doing the acceptable? And yet correction is specifically forbidden by this Bill. It is a nonsense.

    This Bill is a direct attack on parents, parenting and parental authority. It wants to forbid parents from imposing their standards upon their own children by forbidding them to correct their own children. It is incredibly harmful to children morally, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually and academically to present them with unclear and ambiguous standards or to be inconsistent in enforcing them. This Bill puts good parents into a quagmire of uncertainty as to how or even if they can legally impose and then enforce any standards at all upon their children without falling foul of the law.

    The sooner we dump this Bill the better.

    ENDS


    21 November 2006 – Ashburton Guardian: Editorial Comment

    http://www.ashburtonguardian.co.nz/index.asp?articleid=8322


    Editorial comment November 21
    By Grant Shimmin

    It’s an issue every parent or caregiver has been confronted with at some point, and most likely on numerous occasions. Whether or not to smack an errant child.
    And it seems that question is getter closer to being a decision about whether or not to commit a criminal offence.
    Green MP Sue Bradford’s bill, aimed at getting rid of section 59 of the Crimes Act, which allows “reasonable force” in disciplining children, has moved a step closer to becoming law after Parliament’s justice committee recommended the bill pass with an amendment defining the circumstances in which reasonable physical force may be used.
    But it hardly seems that situations like pulling a child’s hand away from a hot stove or grabbing a child about to run into the road are the same circumstances where smacking may come into play.
    And essentially, this bill will tell us that if we smack, we’re committing an offence.
    This bill had the best of intentions. It was clearly aimed at reducing violence against children, a worthy cause if ever there was one.
    But as one pretty experienced parent said this morning, there’s no way this proposed change is going to stop situations where children are bashed to death by parents or family members. Believe it or not, that’s always been illegal. There are laws and punishments available for such offending.
    What this bill risks doing is putting hundreds of thousands of reasonable, loving parents under a cloud of uncertainty.
    According to one report today, the bill’s promoters, led by Bradford, are saying reasonable parents who give their kids a light smack don’t risk legal sanction.
    “The current police prosecution guidelines and the current practice of judges is not to prosecute people for trivial and minor offences,” she’s quoted as saying.
    It’s an assurance, but it’s certainly not a guarantee. The point is that it will still be an offence to smack and reasonable, loving parents who discipline their kids for the own good don’t want to be made to feel that they’re committing a criminal offence.
    By all means, punish child abusers to the fullest extent of the law, but leave the vast majority of good parents to raise their kids without a legal sword hanging over them.


    20 November 2006 – Family Integrity Press Release – Criminalisation of Parents Confirmed

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0611/S00306.htm


    At last MP Sue Bradford has been forced to admit her real objectives of her bill to repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act. The Justice and Electoral Select Committee’s report shows it was not to reduce violence but to hamstring parents.

    The committee has re-written Section 59 so that it lists the occasions when reasonable force can be used by parents with their children. This categorising of legitimate uses of force was something Bradford consistently railed against as totally unacceptable. But she has helped delineate and describe four situations. Three of those have to do with preventing behaviour that might lead to harm, or crime, or is offensive or disruptive. The fourth simply allows parents to use reasonable force for “performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting.”

    But the re-write specifically and pointedly prohibits reasonable force to be used if the motivation is to correct.

    Parents are to be legally prohibited from correcting their own children! How revealing of Bradford’s purposes! The original Section 59 only allows the use of reasonable force for one reason: correction. Bradford’s new version of Section 59 only specifically prohibits the use of force for one reason: correction.

    Correcting children with force of any kind, however light, is specifically prohibited. Yet part of parenting is teaching right and proper behaviour and speech, teaching manners and etiquette, teaching grooming and modesty, teaching right from wrong, good from bad, wise from unwise. Reasonable force can be used to stop some but not all bad behaviour the parents may want to stop. But nothing in this law appears to allow parents to use force to get the child to behave in a way the parent may require or that culture, tradition or societal norms expect. This new Section 59 allows the use of reasonable force to stop some types of bad behaviour, but does not allow the use of force to enforce the performance or practise of any kind of good behaviour.

    The standard of public behaviour will obviously sink to the lowest level generally acceptable, since parents will not be legally allowed to force children to maintain higher standards. Disobedience and disrespect will blossom. Those who feed on such dysfunction can see a bonanza on the horizon: it was as if this legislation had the future welfare of counsellors, psychologists, lawyers and the exploding numbers of child and family advocacy and interventionist groups in mind.

    This Bill has become totally unworkable. It shows that the purpose has nothing at all to do with violence or excessive force against children, which things are already illegal. The purpose of this bill all along has been to repeal parental authority over their own children, to minimise and compromise a parent’s ability to correct, train or discipline his or her child to act, dress or speak to any standard imposed by the parent.

    Correction of children is to be illegal. This is absurd. It is insane.

    Craig Smith
    National Director
    Family Integrity


    20 November 2006 – Family First Press Release – Parents Should Be Worried

    Family First Press Release – Select Committee ignores the facts on smacking; parents should be worried

    MEDIA RELEASE
    20 NOVEMBER 2006

    Select Committee ignores the facts on smacking, and parents should be worried

    The Justice and Electoral Committee’s announcement that the majority are supporting the Bill designed to remove the statutory defence for parents who use force against their children for the purpose of correction, should cause parents to shiver in their boots.

    “We have just heard about the right of a teenager to effectively ‘divorce’ their parent because they don’t like the family rules, a 12 year old being sneaked off to get contraceptives by their school, and now this Bill,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First. “Parents in NZ should be horrified by the way their authority and responsibilities are being undermined.”

    The majority view of the Select Committee has ignored a number of key issues:

    1. Child abuse is already illegal in New Zealand – Repealing s59 isn’t needed, because the law already says that child abusers have committed a crime. Since 1990, there have only been seven successful defences under s59 – that’s seven in 16 years!

    2. If s59 is repealed, good parents will be treated as criminals under the law – The police have confirmed, and has been confirmed by two Queen’s Counsels that smacking a child would be assault. They will have to investigate any complaint made against a parent for smacking or even removal to ‘time out’. This will immediately place a family under enormous pressure. The police have to enforce the law, regardless of what politicians say.

    3. Banning smacking will not stop child abuse – In 2003, a UNICEF report identified poverty, stress and family breakdown – along with drug and alcohol abuse – as the factors most closely and consistently associated with child abuse and neglect. Of the five countries with the lowest child abuse death rates in the UNICEF report, four allow smacking!

    4. Reasonable smacking does not damage children or teach them to be violent – A recent Otago University study found that children who were smacked in a reasonable way had similar or slightly better outcomes in terms of aggression, substance abuse, adult convictions and school achievement than those who were not smacked at all.

    “The Select Committee has chosen to ignore the 80% of NZ’ers who know the difference between a smack and child abuse, and want s59 retained,” says Mr McCoskrie. “The Politicians must support kiwi parents and reject repeal.”

    ENDS

    For more information contact Family First:

    Bob McCoskrie JP
    National Director
    Tel. 09 261 2426 | Mob. 027 55 555 42
    email. bob@familyfirst.org.nz | www.familyfirst.org.nz
    P.O. Box 276-133, Manukau City, Auckland, New Zealand


    30 October 2006 – Victim decries sex link to discipline

    http://www.challengeweekly.co.nz/Vol_64_Issue_No_42.html


    Printed on October 30, 2006
    Victim decries sex link to discipline

    A woman who was severely abused as a child is decrying MP Sue Bradford ‘s attempts to equate physical discipline with abuse and to demonise Christians who discipline their children.

    In a speech Ms Bradford made even stronger allegations, linking discipline and sexual abuse.

    She said: “Personally, I have no problem with sadomasochism carried out between consenting adults using safe sex practices. What I do have a problem with is a legacy of hidden sexual violence practised on children and young people under a mantle of so-called discipline. Section 59 of the Crimes Act has been protecting the perpetrators of a vicious mix of sexual and physical abuse for generations.”

    Former Christchurch woman Glenyss Barker, who lately moved to Melbourne, says that as a child she was in a family that suffered horrific abuse from an alcoholic father.

    “I can now speak because both my parents are dead and it will not cause them any pain to do this. My mother was abused, as were all of my siblings. Being the youngest, I believe I probably got off more lightly but the memories are still there.

    “Because of this experience I am fully aware, as I was as a little girl, of the difference between ‘abuse ‘ and ‘discipline ‘. After the family broke up and the divorce, my mother did discipline us with smacks and I knew that this was not abuse, but justified because my actions had needed to be reprimanded.

    “All children need guidance and, at times, something stronger than a word to make them behave. Children with strong personalities will always try to push the boundaries but they need to know the adults are in charge and are to be obeyed.

    “As a teacher it was also apparent to me which children were loved and cared for, and I was always aware of the children who were not disciplined at home. They were often the ones wanting stricter guidelines in the classroom, and they responded very well to classroom structure and order.”

    Mrs Barker says repealing Section 59 of the Crimes Act will do nothing to correct abuse in New Zealand homes, but it will make loving parents fearful and prevent them from sensibly disciplining children so they grow up as mature, caring adults.

    “My children have reflected that they respect the discipline in our home and I am very proud of the young women they have grown into. We disciplined them when it was needed, but did not abuse them – they like me, even as children, recognised the difference.”

    Mrs Barker says to regard loving discipline or a smack as abuse shows that people do not have any idea of what abuse really is.

    “I do – it happened to me and I really am worried that Ms Bradford is seeking to remove the only help parents have to assert the authority needed to ensure children are brought up knowing their actions have consequences in life.”

    Mrs Barker was formerly secretary of the television viewers organisation VoTE (Viewers for Television Excellence).

    She says the deluge of extremely violent and sexual scenes daily on TV is a far better documented cause of the breakdown in homes than parental discipline. The instances of teenage murder and violence lately are ample examples of the effect copycat violence is having.

    “If Ms Bradford honestly wishes to reduce the amount of child abuse in homes she should start with the dreadful programmes that are screened during the times children are known to be up and watching TV,” she says.

  • 15 October 2006 – 14 November 2006


    14 November 2006 – Press Release — Bradford is in self-destruct mode

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0611/S00200.htm
    Bradford is in self-destruct mode

    Tuesday, 14 November 2006, 12:36 pm
    Press Release: Family Integrity

    Press Release
    For Immediate Distribution

    MP Sue Bradford is in self-destruct mode as she makes incriminating remarks in a form letter trying to justify why she voted to keep the lower legal age for purchasing alcohol:
    “Clearly, there are a wide variety of factors that impact on the harms caused by alcohol, that simply cannot be and will not be addressed by simply raising the purchasing age. . . . “I am not prepared to strip away the legal rights of a section of the community on the basis of research that is not definitive. Nor will I use the law to take away rights when there is no evidence that the law will be effective.”

    If you transpose these statements into the context of the debate over the repeal of section 59, you will see that Ms Bradford is most definitely “prepared to strip away the legal rights of” all parents and to do so “on the basis of research that is not definitive,” (in fact, even in the face of good research by Dr Jane Millichamp of Otago University and only recently released, to the contrary).

    She is also quite willing to “use the law to take away rights when there is no evidence the law will be effective” in reducing the prevalence of child abuse.

    She is happy “simply” to ban reasonable force in the correction of children, rather than address the “wide variety of” real and observable “factors” that lead to child abuse and family violence, namely, alcohol and substance abuse; family breakdown (which means many children grow up in homes where one of their natural parents, usually the father, is replaced by a stranger); graphic violence on the TV, computer, and cinema screens, and in video games; and bullying in public schools. These factors are crying out to be addressed, but Sue Bradford’s simplistic answer is: ban all use of reasonable force from normal parenting, ie. strip away the legal rights and protection of all parents! Criminalise the lot, she says. It seems in her book parenting is not a complex issue and a blanket criminalisation of “reasonable force” is not simplistic. Yeah. Right.

    ENDS


    25 October 2006 – EPOCH are making some rather empty claims

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0610/S00260.htm
    Wednesday, 25 October 2006, 10:19 am
    Press Release: Family Integrity

    25 October 2006

    EPOCH are making some rather empty claims.

    They say there are 60 so-called child and family organisations who are informed when they call for repeal of Section 59. These organisations generally have four things working against them being properly informed: One, they view things from a detached academic and/or institutional view, while those who are at the coalface….parents….have consistently expressed their desire by voting at around 80% in poll after poll to retain Section 59. Two, they tend to view parents and their children in simplistic, black and white, adversarial caricatures wherein parents are too busy and stressed to understand their children properly and can barely cope and need these children’s groups to intervene. That is, they see parents as the selfish villains who don’t have their own children’s best interests at heart, and they see themselves as the selfless heroes who have only the child’s best interests at heart. Three, they are inordinately paternalistic, telling the vast majority of parents, who they know disagree with their views, how to raise their children. Four, since they know they are vastly outnumbered by ordinary New Zealanders, they want the state to coerce everyone else to adopt their minority views, and then have the audacity to suggest this anti-democratic coercion shows “leadership” by politicians. This makes one suspect they are closet Marxists.

    They make the incredulous statement that the purpose of changing the law is education rather than prosecution. This is simply daft. The law does educate, yes, but it only does so by punishing law-breakers. As long as some parents are prosecuted for using reasonable force to correct, train and discipline their children, other parents will learn either to avoid using reasonable force to correct, train and discipline their children, leaving us with a nation full of undisciplined children, or to avoid being noticed by going underground. Isn’t it interesting how in these enlightened times, homosexuality and prostitution are no longer criminalized and driven underground, but these pro-repeal of Section 59 groups are keen to criminalise parents and drive them underground?

    They expect MPs and others to simply accept their poorly disguised propaganda statement that “Physical discipline does not show children how to behave well.” Any parent worth his salt knows that good examples show children how to behave well, that consistent verbal instructions tell children how to behave well, and that physical discipline makes children behave well until such time as they have internalised self-discipline and personal habits of behaving well. It is as if the repeal lobby simply do not understand this basic concept of parenting children. Countless generations of people from all manner of religious, cultural, ethnic, social, educational and economic backgrounds have testified over time and continue to testify today that physical discipline is essential to the cultivation of good behaviour.

    The efforts of EPOCH and other such groups are so paternalistic and ideologically driven that they will criminalise good parents and drive them underground.

    Craig Smith
    National Director
    Family Integrity


    15 October 2006 – Press Release: Ruby Harrold-Claesson – Smacking children is not harmful

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0610/S00150.htm

    Smacking children is not harmful

    Sunday, 15 October 2006, 3:09 pm

    Press Release: Ruby Harrold-Claesson

    Smacking children is not harmful
    Ruby Harrold-Claesson, lawyer

    I fully agree with the study presented according to which “Smacking children [is] not so harmful”. In this day and age when we have to study everything from a scientific point of view, common sense, which was the guideline for former generations, has been thrown out the window!

    Most sensible people must be aware of the fact that no matter how much we love our children, there occurs sometimes in the most harmonious of families occasions when parents must use reasonable force against their children. That has nothing to do with violence. Smacking a 16-yr old who has thrown an axe at a younger sibling, (Case 14 in my submission to the Select Committee), is not violence. Smacking a 15-yr old who has pushed her mother so she fell down the stairs because she was not given a tape-recorder, (Case 16 in my submission), is not child abuse. These two cases are exact scenarios from my legal experience. The 16 and 15 year olds were legally responsible but they were not prosecuted for their terrible acts, but the parents were prosecuted for “child abuse”.

    Former generations, and most of the parents in the world, can differentiate between smacking and child abuse. Smacking is used by responsible parents, when words and admonitions are not enough to make the child cease and desist from an unacceptable behaviour. That has nothing to do with violence or child abuse.

    On October 15, 2004 in the wake of the acquittal of the stepfather in Uddevalla, (a small town in southern Sweden), who had smacked his 15 yr old step-daughter who had spat in his face (Case 29 in my submission), the evening newspaper, Aftonbladet, interviewed five persons. They all said it was wrong to smack children.

    See http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyheter/story/0,2789,547607,00.html

    The following day I was interviewed on the Morning Program on TV and I congratulated the court on a verdict based on common sense. The same day Aftonbladet published an article with interviews with a well-known record producer, Bert Karlsson, and me. Bert Karlsson said: “I would have hit even harder”.

    See http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyheter/story/0,2789,547945,00.html

    The following Tuesday night (19/10) I was invited to participate in a panel debate on the Television program “Debate” with Lennart Persson. The panel was made up of six persons: three for smacking and three against. On my team I had Rune Torwald, one of the six MP’s who had voted against the anti-smacking law and a criminologist. On the other team were the Children’s ombudsman, a psychologist from Save the Children and a European MP. The anti-smackers claimed that it was damaging for defenceless children to be smacked. However, the issue at hand was the case with the 15-year old girl. A 15-year old is not a defenceless child. At age 15 a youngster is punishable by law and has also attained the legal age of consent to sexual relations.

    Towards the end of the program Lennart Persson asked the psychologist from Save the Children if all former generations of children – including us adults born before the anti-smacking law was passed – were damaged. The psychologist from Save the Children hesitated then he answered “No”. That’s the only answer he could give because I’m sure that he too was smacked as a child. So, if he had replied “yes” then he would be stating that he himself was traumatised.

    Several leading authorities on child rearing have a more common sense attitude towards child smacking. For example, Dr. Laura Schlessinger states in the article “Is parental authority important? Dr. Laura weighs in on ‘sparing the rod’”, published on WorldNetDaily on February 10, 2001, the following:
    “(…) the necessity for the adults to establish themselves as authority figures is, in my opinion, the single most important factor in child rearing.”
    The American psychoanalyst, Robert Waelder, wrote in his book “Basic theory of Psychoanalysis”, I quote:
    “… a psychoanalytic approach to upbringing does not mean that children should get what they desire when they desire something; instead it demands an attempt to find a suitable balance between satisfaction and disappointment in every situation … we have to find the optimal combination of two equally important but partly opposite ingredients for a healthy development, namely, love and discipline; to love without spoiling and to discipline without injuring.”

    In Sweden we have had a blanket prohibition against smacking children since 1979. Since then hundreds, maybe thousands, of parents have been prosecuted for “child abuse” and their children have been taken into compulsory care and placed in foster homes – where in fact they have been severely abused mentally, physically and even sexually.

    The greatest harm that is being done to children in Sweden today is not caused by parents who give an occasional smacking, but by unnecessary state intervention into their private and family lives. Since the beginning of the 1970s, parents have been indoctrinated in the modern philosophy that children should have free upbringing. Free upbringing came to mean “freedom from upbringing”. The state agencies took over and parents have been forced to abdicate from their positions of authority for their children – on pain of prison and the loss of their children to the state.

    Discipline became a despised word – a word that should not be used by parents in child rearing and neither by teachers in the schools. Many leading persons in Sweden have reacted to the fact that Swedish children are wild and lacking in discipline.

    In an article “Youngsters must meet a firm reaction”, published in the Swedish Daily on September 5, 1993, former Justice Minister, Mrs Gun Hellsvik, and former School Minister, now Justice Minister, Mrs Beatrice Ask, asserted that Sweden needs a new family policy. They wrote inter alia:
    “In recent years, there is a dawning societal debate on moral and ethical questions. (…) We are beginning to see the results of the general lack of principles that the social democrats promoted as a political goal during the sixties and seventies. It was their vision of family, school and teaching and also about the legal system in general. There are certain basic ideas that we believe most people in our country agree with in principle: Adults have a responsibility to teach the youth what is right and wrong. Parents have a particular responsibility towards their children. … Young persons who break rules must learn to take the consequences and expect to meet a firm reaction. The State shall in every respect facilitate parents and among others teachers to fulfil their educational tasks.” (My italics)

    “Aversion towards the family
    Among the social-democrats since the beginning of the sixties, there has been an unexplainable aversion towards the family and a reluctance to allow the schools to fulfil their important roll as a conveyor of norms. Parents were told that they “snuffed the development of their children. They were informed in no uncertain terms that their children would fare better if they were taken care of by specially trained staff at public institutions.
    Parents were deemed to be lacking in knowledge and rather dangerous for their children… (…)
    In the end it is necessary that children or adolescents who break prescribed rules must meet a firm reaction both at home and at school. Because of this there are a number of changes that are necessary in our country.
    Therefore, we need a new family policy that will show that the responsibility for the supervision and upbringing of the children rests on the parents… (…)
    It is high time to let parents and the teaching staff take responsibility for the youth in our society. If we fail to do that we will fail our children!”

    On August 16, 2003 the Swedish columnist, Linda Skugge wrote:

    “We are bringing up a generation of monsters”

    and on July 4, 2005, the journalist Roger Lord wrote the article:

    “The children are embarrassing Sweden”.

    Despite the negative Swedish experiences, certain politicians in other countries are trying to enforce similar legislation.

    The Archbishop of Canterbury was quoted in an article published in Aftonbladet on October 27, 1996, saying that “smacking is good for children.” The article also informs that Tony Blair has admitted smacking his children, and that he deems it necessary sometimes.

    And, on October 9, 2006, USA Today published the article “CEOs Often Spanked as Kids”, asserting that smacking is one thing they overwhelmingly have in common.

    There is no conclusive evidence that smacking is harmful to children. The burden of proof must lay on those who propose a change in the existing system.