ST JAMES, Jamaica — Saying being beaten as a child only made her more obstinate, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Juliet Holness has once again come out strongly against corporal punishment.

“My mother used to beat me. I don’t know why. I was the eldest and she used to put some lick on me. It wasn’t necessary because the more she lick me, the more stubborn me get; and because of it, I do not beat my children. My husband, no beating, let’s sit and talk about it and now we are very happy and proud of who [our children] have become,” she said.

Holness, the wife of Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Member of Parliament for St Andrew East Rural, was speaking at the Mount Carey Baptist Church in St James on Wednesday during an awards ceremony for students who did well in the Primary Exit Profile exams. She said she has been speaking out against corporal punishment since 2016.

She encouraged adults to find other ways of modifying unruly behaviour of children in their care, such as withholding items they like.

“My little brother used to say, ‘Beat me mommy, beat me!’ because my mother finally got to that place where she understood that taking away what you liked was better than beating you,” she added.

The prime minister has also spoken out against corporal punishment in the past and has indicated that the Government is working on measures to bring about a ban on the activity. These efforts have received the endorsement of several child protection agencies including the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which has long sought to encourage Jamaican parents not to beat their children.

In a Statin survey, which was done in 2019 and released earlier this year, respondents were questioned on their use of forms of discipline. The data showed that within the corporal punishment category, slapping was found to be the most commonly used form, with 65 per cent of children getting a slap when they were deemed to have misbehaved.

A further 24 per cent of the children were reportedly beaten with an implement while 13 per cent were pinched as a form of punishment.

The data also showed that under the non-corporal punishment category, talking about why the action was wrong was the highest method at 64 per cent, reasoning at 55 per cent, removing privileges at 40 per cent, time out at 26 per cent and ignoring the assumed misdeed at 24 per cent.

The psychologically aggressive method showed that quarrelling/shouting was at 49 per cent, denying food just under one per cent and swearing/cursing at 13 per cent.