Between April 2023 and March 2024, the NSPCC Helpline handled 1,451 child welfare contacts from across the UK where physical punishment was mentioned. This was over three times higher than in the same period in 2022 and 2023.
In April of this year, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) called for equal protection for children and young people against physical assault, such as smacking, hitting, and slapping in England and Northern Ireland.
In England and Northern Ireland, children are the only group of people not fully protected in law from physical assault. In both countries a parent can use the defence of ‘reasonable punishment’ to justify physically punishing a child in certain circumstances, for example by slapping, smacking, or hitting.
In light of this new data RCPCH is once again calling on the UK Government and Northern Ireland Executive to follow Scotland and Wales and end the use of physical punishment against children and young people.
RCPCH Officer for Child Protection and Consultant Paediatrician, Professor Andrew Rowland, said:
The negative health impacts of physical punishment in childhood are well documented, clear and need no further debate. Children who experience physical punishment are more likely to develop poorer mental health and are more likely to experience serious physical assault and abuse. Physical punishment of children harms their health. Evidence also shows that laws which prohibit physical punishment work. 66 states have already passed such laws and physical punishment and other forms of violence against children have reduced.
This most recent data must be a further wakeup call of the need for change within England and Northern Ireland to better protect children living in those countries. Using physical force on a child is not a legitimate, or even effective, form of discipline. It is detrimental to both the child and their relationship with their parent or care giver. I have seen this first hand in my own clinical work where I regularly have conversations with children who report that they have been physically punished; and I know that these experiences are commonplace amongst paediatricians.
As a UK based paediatrician, I think it is wholly wrong that children in England and Northern Ireland have less protection and less protection of their rights than their Scottish and Welsh counterparts. It is time to outlaw physical punishment across the whole of the UK and finally put an end to this outdated practice. This is nothing short of what children need; what children deserve; and, frankly, what children are entitled to.