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The famous saying “the beating came out of heaven” could soon be continued in Serbia, “ended in hell”, because the announced changes to the Family Law should send a violent method of raising a child into history. Serbia has been preparing for such an endeavor for a long time, and as it is heard, the plan is for the parliament to adopt amendments to the Family Law by the end of the year. Although the proposal has not yet reached the Serbian Parliament, it has caused great controversy, primarily because it classifies all types of physical contact as violence, as well as because of the possibility for a child to report violent parents to the school he goes to and the school forwards to the Center for Social Work. Violence also means a light beating, because the child is placed in a subordinate position.
The Ministry of Family Care and Demography says that no one will go to prison, nor will they be deprived of parenthood if they beat their child, but they will have to be educated on non-violent methods of upbringing within numerous counseling centers and parenting schools. That is, moms and dads who hit a child can go to school again, but to learn parenting.
The ban on corporal punishment stems from the obligation that Serbia has undertaken by ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which stipulates that the signatory state is obliged to take measures to protect the child from physical violence.
In Serbia, every third child suffers physical violence, every sixth psychological punishment, according to the latest UNICEF research. More than 30 percent of the surveyed parents do not think that a child should never be hit during upbringing, while among 1,186 respondents, more than two thirds have been psychologically aggressive at least once in the past year. Some form of physical violence was used at least once by 60 percent of parents to discipline a child, and 45 percent used physical violence. Nearly half, 47 percent, beat a child for the first time between the ages of two and three, and 63 percent used some form of physical aggression as a way of disciplining at least once during a child’s life. The two most common reasons for violent discipline are stated in 22 percent of cases, the child’s disobedience and 23 percent, because he found himself in a dangerous situation. It is comforting that only three percent in the past year and two percent during the child’s life, used more severe forms of physical violence. It is encouraging that almost 91 percent of parents still used the form of non-violent upbringing in 2020, and 93 percent think that beating is not good for the development of children.
Viewed in the EU, Sweden is at the top of the countries when it comes to the material and any security of children and their health. The upbringing of children is liberal, as opposed to the authoritative traditional one, and the institutions promote the freedom of opinion and action of children, a relationship that implies respect. Sex education was introduced in Sweden in 1955, and it was the first country in the world to ban the corporal punishment of children in the early 1980s. Almost 40 years after Sweden, France adopted a law in July 2019 that prohibits punishment, ie that parental authority must not be exercised through physical or psychological violence for educational purposes. However, the French law is symbolic, because it does not provide for punitive measures that already exist in the code, and from the non-governmental sector it is heard that about 85% of parents in this country use some “violence for so-called educational purposes”. The German government intended to enshrine children’s rights in the Constitution, but as Deutsche Welle announced last week, those changes will not take place during this government. The coalition agreement between the ruling Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats announced the intention to constitutionally guarantee the rights of children in Germany, in accordance with the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. But, as it is stated, it seems that the problem is not only to win over the opposition deputies in the Bundestag, to achieve the two-thirds majority necessary for changing the Constitution, but also that there is no agreement among coalition partners when it comes to the content and meaning of that amendment.
Belt, brush and stick
UNICEF research on the application of educational discipline over children in the family in Serbia showed various forms of physical punishment of children, and most parents, 36 percent of them resort to slapping their buttocks. 18 percent physically punish children with a fist on the hand, arm or leg, and 10 percent slapped a child on the face or head or ears. A child pinched seven percent of them, and the same number pulled their face, head or ears, while six percent used hard objects, such as a belt, a brush and a stick.
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