PARTICIPANTS in a UNICEF-sponsored roundtable discussion on the “Positive disciplining of children”, yesterday agreed that the law on corporal punishment should be reviewed.

In fact, Hopeton Henry, the head of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association, which represents the island’s more than 20,000 public school teachers, said corporal punishment should be banned.

“I would make the call now for the government to abolish corporal punishment,” Henry said. “They’ve [the government] run away from administering it [corporal punishment] to a position of ambivalence, we need to get to a decisive point,” Henry said.

The JTA president said that about a month ago, when a vice-principal at the Green Island High School in Hanover reportedly beat 51 students, the Ministry of Education shied away from an opportunity to state its position on the matter.

In the meantime, legal officer in the Office of the Children’s Advocate Norman Mills said that while the Child Care and Protection Act of 2004 prohibits the use of corporal punishment against children who are wards of the state, it has no express word on beating in the home or school.

“All staff members of places of safety, children’s homes and fit persons must recognise, respect, protect and ensure the rights that the Act guarantees children in care, namely… to be free from corporal punishment,” according to Section 62 of the Act.

Maureen Samms-Vaughn, executive chairman of the Early Childhood Commission, said the Early Childhood Act, passed in 2005, outlaws corporal punishment in the early childhood system.

And, Nathan Smith, an Ardenne High School student, who represented the Jamaica Youth Coalition, said corporal punishment might foster intentions of revenge in students, who then perpetrate acts of vandalism, for example, as a means of exacting that revenge.

But Samms-Vaughn said some parents were not sufficiently armed with alternatives to corporal punishment or support services to help them deal with inappropriate behaviours.

“All of us who are in contact with parents must be able to give parents information about alternatives,” she said.

Children’s Advocate Mary Clarke, in the meanwhile, said it was now time to engage the necessary interest groups to see how best a change can be realised in dealing with the issue of corporal punishment. “We can’t just bulldoze a change, we have to strategise,” Clarke said.

Bertrand Bainvel of UNICEF added that there was a strong demand from parents for alternative forms of discipline and that the organisation would be using that as a starting point.