Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbid the signatories to use any form of violence against the young, is being used by the Canadian Foundation for Children. This lobby group took the spanking issue to the Supreme Court. They want a previous judgment that moderate spanking was legal to be annulled. Flogging our kid is not okay; reasonable force is.
It will be interesting to see how far this activist court will go. The decision is expected to come down by the end of the year. If this reasonable form of punishment is forbidden, then we have entered the path to total erosion of the family's rights. The government won't be the nannie state -- but rather, the mother state.
I wonder how many of the General Assembly's less enlightened members will stop massive child abductions, mutilations, rapes and child marriage because of this edict? The Congo is just the latest example of these atrocities committed against children but I don't see any relief from the UN.
