The University of Hong Kong (HKU) Wednesday called to prohibit corporal punishment by law enforcement as two children were recently found dead after corporal punishment by their parents.

"We have a law prohibiting teacher to administer corporal punishment to a pupil, and prohibiting anyone to administer corporal punishment to a child in a center. However, there is no explicit law prohibiting corporal punishment in the home. It conveys a message that parents have the right to physically punish their kids," said Edward Chan Ko-ling, assistant professor of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration of HKU.

A 10-year-old boy was dead recently after he was found inside a leather suitcase at his home. It was not the first time that the parents locked him in it as punishment. Within a couple of days, another 8-year-old girl jumped to death after corporal punishment.

Commissioned by Hong Kong Social Welfare Department, HKU conducted the first-ever household survey on domestic violence. Among the 5,049 adults and 2,062 children aged between 12 to 17 years interviewed, about 44 percent of the parents admitted having administered corporal punishment and physical violence on their children.

The survey also showed that about 53 percent and 57 percent of the respondents supported that intervention by police and mandatory program by law were effective helping the perpetrators.

Chan said imprisonment is not the ultimate purpose of banning corporal punishment. "We propose to expand sentencing options for prosecuted abusive parents to include Court-mandated Batterers Intervention Programs for Abusive Parents," he said.

He urged the government to form an independent, multi-disciplinary committee in a bid to review domestic violence cases such as the recent two children killed to identify psycho-social risk factors of death, causes, trends, characteristics, and inadequacies of the system, if any, for improvement in order to reduce such problems from happening in the future.

He also suggested an establishment of a high powered platform to work out child policy, setting indicators for prevention and evaluation.

In 1979, Sweden became the first country to prohibit all forms of corporal punishment of children. Since then, at least 15 countries have banned corporal punishment in the community including at home.

Source: Xinhua