Citation

Durrant JE, Stewart-Tufescu A, Afifi TO. Child Abuse Negl. 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Departments of Community Health Sciences and Psychiatry, University of Manitoba, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104297

PMID

31796214

Abstract

For centuries, some level of physical violence against children has been normalized, prescribed and legally justified. It has long been argued that violence is not abusive if it is intended as punishment and does not injure the child physically. This proposition has heavily influenced our language, research methods and approaches to intervention with the effect of perpetuating the belief that some level of violence is justifiable and acceptable in children's lives. The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child precipitated a global recognition that the justification of punitive violence violates children's fundamental protection rights. Yet, in the research literature, terminology, methods and approaches often minimize acts of violence if they are intended as punishment. This article summarizes progress made over the past 30 years and issues a call for transformative change in our conceptualizations of punitive violence.

Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Children’s rights; Convention on the Rights of the Child; Corporal punishment; Physical punishment; Physical violence; Punitive violence; Right to protection; Smacking; Spanking