Children’s Advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison, who has in the past supported a complete ban on corporal punishment, says the Government should seek to build consensus on its plan to outlaw the practice in Jamaican homes as uproar from segments of society could be because it is being viewed “as a forced cultural shift”.

“I think that the current climate and the very strong views on all sides of this debate demand that there has to be wide public consultation and an exchange of ideas so that all the different views can be put together and it is not seen as a forced cultural shift, because I think that’s what may be happening,” Gordon-Harrison told the Jamaica Observer on Monday.

According to the children’s advocate, semantics might also be at play in the resistance to the thought of banning corporal punishment.

“Many times when we say corporal punishment is bad people hear discipline is bad, because a lot of Jamaicans and West Indians have corporal punishment as being synonymous with the only form of discipline that can be used to guide children. And so, I think we need to have that public discourse, because when you have discourse sometimes you realise you are actually saying the same thing, but because the understanding is so varied, and people have different grasps of the issue, you find sometimes you think you are disagreeing but there is commonality,” she argued.

“I think it’s a thought-out position, but because it is deeply entrenched cultural practice there should be very widespread consultation with various groups so that the different views can be put on the table and we can come up with some amount of consensus,” she argued.

“I honestly believe that parenting skills really are very difficult to grasp, and so when frustrations mount people tend to go for what they know, what they were exposed to… I think people have just gone to that default position not even meaning or sometimes meaning to, but not with the extent of the force that we end up doing it with; and so we have a disconnect in terms of persons really to get this child-rearing thing right, but not having all the tools,” she said.

“I also think we have high levels of frustration at all levels in the country and so people who are frustrated snap easily. And when you have a child who is misbehaving, as far as you understand it, your frustration sometimes is directed towards that child and hence we are going to get physical,” she added.

Her comments come in the wake of Friday’s indication by Justice Minister Delroy Chuck that the Government intends to outlaw corporal punishment in homes as has been done in schools.

The suggestion has not gone down well in several quarters.

The Association of Christian Communicators and Media (ACCM) said, instead of a ban, the Government should urgently establish a unit to focus on rebuilding the family and helping parents cope with the challenges of child-rearing in Jamaica.The ACCM said that while the abuse of children must never be condoned and the long arm of the law must bring to justice any parent who abuses his or her child, “slapping a child appropriately as part of disciplinary measures is not considered abuse”.

According to the ACCM, the “effort to curtail long-standing and acceptable disciplinary tools available to parents is a direct overreach by the Government and can only be seen as an effort to replace the role of parents in the home”.

“This is of deep concern as the family remains the foremost and primary unit of socialisation, and the responsibility for the discipline of children must remain in and with the home. The ACCM is also noting that the high levels of indiscipline and violence in our schools, where the Government has full control, speak to a failing system that needs to be urgently addressed, and effective measures must be put in place to prevent any more of our children from losing their lives while in government care,” the group stated further.

Dr Patience Alonge, head of the ACCM Family and Gender Subcommittee, also noted that “parents have gotten younger in recent years, and in their professional pursuits many children are left to their own devices for extended periods. Families that subscribe to Christian values and are supported and empowered by specially designed programmes are positioned to have better outcomes in terms of the discipline and academic performance of their children”.

According to Dr Alonge, “Every well-thinking Jamaican needs to be concerned about the announcement by Justice Minister Chuck.”

“The Government has already demonstrated its inability to handle disciplinary issues in our schools, and it is expanding its reach into homes. This must not be accepted by the wider population. We have taken all the attitudes and cultures from the United States and adopted them into Jamaican reality. It is time for us to step back and look at what our parents did and the success they had in raising generations to love and honour God, love each other, love the country, and live decent lives. We need to train parents to be parents and to do what is good for us and our children,” Dr Alonge said.

The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), in a hurried statement on Monday, said “No decision has been made to ban corporal punishment in homes.

“The Administration takes the opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to eliminating violence in our society, particularly against our children. The Administration respects and acknowledges the importance of engaging with a wide cross section of stakeholders, including families and churches, on issues concerning efforts to stem violence against children,” it said.

In noting that “the Government values the diverse perspective within our society and is committed to a collaborative approach to addressing the issue”, the OPM further said the National Commission on Violence Prevention has been tasked with conducting a multidimensional examination of societal violence ensuring that all voices are heard and considered. It said the report of that committee will be a key driver to inform a national conversation.

“The Government looks forward to receiving the report from the commission and will continue to engage in wide consultations concerning the issue towards ultimately protecting the well-being of our nation’s children,” it said further.

In the 2019 Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions compiled by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica and the Planning Institute of Jamaica, which was released in 2022, a total of 6,551 individuals from 2,300 households were questioned on their use of forms of discipline categorised under corporal punishment, non-corporal punishment, and psychologically aggressive methods.

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.

Although the three-year trend shows an incremental decline in the use of slapping, it was, again, the most commonly used form of discipline overall. There was an increase in the use of ‘talk about why an action was wrong’, making it as common a form of discipline as slapping in 2019,” the survey noted at the time.

Within that same period UNICEF’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean Jean Gough, in an exclusive interview with the
Observer had said the use of violent actions, such as beating, to reprimand children should be ruled out. Gough recommended interventions such as parenting programmes, which she said would encourage positive discipline.

UNICEF has been working in partnership with the National Parenting Support Commission, an agency of the Ministry of Education and Youth, to encourage better disciplinary actions.