Written By: - Date published: 12:27 pm, December 21st, 2007 - 60 comments
Categories: International -
Tags: International
Yesterday we saw a report from Police Deputy Commissioner Rob Pope saying claims that the repeal of section 59 would lead to the prosecution of parents and the removal of children from their homes have been proven wrong.
This follows another report which indicates that the law change has not led to a big rise in child abuse notifications to protection agencies.
Now we see Spain moving in the same direction:
“Until now parents have been allowed to “reasonably and moderately correct” their children, but deputies deleted that clause and rewrote Spain’s civil code to make clear that a child’s physical and psychological integrity should be respected.
Spain’s Socialist government, which pushed through the change, has often been accused by the conservative Popular Party opposition of undermining traditional values and the family with policies such as legalising gay marriage.
Popular Party deputies, who voted against the change, said the measure would leave parents powerless, but Socialists said the law shut the door to any chance of misunderstanding.
Around 16 European countries have already banned smacking at school and in the home…”
All this makes is harder for those who preached against the law changes here.
Not only has the law had minimal impact for most Kiwi parents, we are part of the growing international movement that supports the principal that children have a fundamental right to be free from violence in the home.
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Scoopit!
Time to recall one of the leading contenders for quote of the year:
“I will tell members this: the day this bill passes — if it passes — I make a vow to go down to the police station and confess that I have smacked my children” – National MP Tau Henare (Hansard, March 28).
He subsequently voted for the bill.
I wonder if he kept his promise?
Tau’s never kept a promise in his life – didn’t he also sign an agreement with NZF to only stay in parliament as long as he stayed with the party and then break that promise, just like Kopu did with the Alliance?
“All this makes is harder for those who preached against the law changes here.”
Yup, there is nothing that screams THIS IS UNQUESTIONABLY GOOD like when “Spain’s Socialist government” institutes an unpopular policy.
The fact is the law wasnt needed. The previous “loophole”, wasnt. It was dogwhistle politics at its worst.
The law, as it stands, is wide open to abuse by those in power. See I think that is the problem with the left. They WANT authoritarian power. They LUUURVE it. They are only too happy to have everyone subjugate individual’s rights to the all-knowing State.
That is why a foreign government passing legislation automatically makes the case stronger for the local government doing so. There is ZERO possibility that the socialist government in Spain is wrong. ZERO.
That is why the number of POLITICAL PARTIES supporting a bill is more important than the number of people they represent doing the same (ie, the number of seats those parties have).
Er, using your own argument, you might want to check the number of seats that voted in favour of Bradford’s bill.
Was it an overwhelming number, gobsmacked?
Any legislation that passes will only have done so if the majority of mp’s voted for it. So why bother counting the number of political parties that support it? Would that simply be retarded?
I read a recent report that said reported cases to CYFS had increased 17.5%. That is significant. I’ll dig the report out later.
And trying to claim that the chage has not had any major negative impact in such a short time is weak.
Is that like Climate Change deniers saying “oh, our emissions increased 18% over the last 10 years, but the sea level didn’t rise by 18m, so it must be all OK. It may or may not be OK, and either way, I wouldn’t be using that sort of reasoning.
But enough about politics. Can I interest you in a diet of fish with traces of mercury? Would you like to put some asbestos paneling in your home as as a fire retardant? How about some dioxin in your milk carton? Some totally safe sweeteners in your diet coke then?
I know people that have been smoking tobacco for years, and they are fit as a fiddle.
Yes sirree, the world didn’t end five minutes ago. Wonder what NZ Labour can do now?
A 13 year old started smoking today. Five hours later, they still don’t have cancer. This “health warning” malarky sure has fooled a lot of people then, hasn’t it?
Zen, quit being a twat – it’s not becoming on you.
One question that I never heard asked during the debate;
“How many parents/caregivers who, when judged by the prevailing moral standards ARE physically abusing their children, successfully managed to avoid prosecution using the ‘reasonable force’ argument/loophole?”
I’m willing to bet you all the money in my pockets, against all the money in your pockets, that the answer to that question is: “None”
may be a bit late to reply to this but (paranoia aside – tho you can never really discount it with some of these right wing fuckwits) – the reason for the rise in CYF referrals is well known: it’s down to the anti-domestic violence campaign, which means that when police attend a DV report, even if no further action is taken, then if the household involves children they automatically report to CYF; for obvious reasons! This could well help to pick up some of the hidden child abuse cases that have horrified NZ recently.
1. Section 59 was never used to prosecute abuse against children. It was only ever used to escape justice for abusing children.
2. If we want to go back to the good old days where the man was head of the family and wives and children were dealt with how the old man damned well pleased behind closed doors, say so, but you cannot have archaic laws that enable adults to hurt children and then quote recent laws to protect themselves, eg men could legally hit women and rape them within marriage.
If women want to hit children then maybe they should reverse the law that allows them protection. If men want to hit children – well let’s face it, it’s a man’s world. They like to control women and children. They would love to be able to beat and rape their women again with legal impunity.
What saddens me most is that women are just as virulent as men in their anger at not being able to hit their children. They have short memories of their own vulnerability in this world.
“They would love to be able to beat and rape their women again with legal impunity.”
Ummm. No.
“1. Section 59 was never used to prosecute abuse against children. It was only ever used to escape justice for abusing children.”
Wow, Jum, you are retarded.
Section 59 provides a defence from prosecution only, so no one is ever charged under that section of the Act. If it was used so often to escape prosecution you should be able to provide a handful of examples of this happening.
It will be interesting if you are able to find one.
Also, it has never been legal to beat your wife in western cultures.
Kimble, there are several cases in which section 59 was used not to escape prosecution but to escape conviction this was the case in the now infamous failed prosecution of the Timaru woman who beat her child with a riding crop and a cane. Or do you think that that’s acceptable treatment of children?
And, even though this is a ridiclous aside, it has been explicitly legal to beat your wife in western cultures (England allowed it until the 1700′s). But wife-beating was tacitly approved of until very recently (police discretion, anyone?).
“who beat her child with a riding crop and a cane.”
What about the case of the person who escaped prosecution even though he used a knife to cut into my father and removed whole chunks of meat from his body? He was a doctor and the parts were cancer.
See, context matters. I think Zentiger might know more about that case than anyone else on the net, perhaps if he stops by he can educate you.
Kimble, that’s just silly. There is no “context” that justifies beating a child like that, you’re dissembling because you were wrong and have been caught out. Act like an adult and accept it rather than asking Zen to fight your (losing) battles for you.
Thank you – IrishBill – for correcting me factually and not insultingly as Kimble did.
There is also the block of 4 x 2 used on a 12 year old boy.
Kimble – Neat move to ignore the fact that rape in marriage was legal (right up to mid 80s). Surely beating to achieve the rape was legal by default. Rape is far worse than beating.
The cancer thing, Kimble, I’ve had it. I’ve had the pieces taken out. I have another 19 years to wait for the all clear. So what. I gave my permission for this surgery like your father would have.
Hitting children is quite different. That is the cancer in society that needs cutting out.
Jum wrote:
“They [men] like to control women and children. They would love to be able to beat and rape their women again with legal impunity.”
Which ‘men’ are you talking about, Jum? Your father? Your uncles? Your brothers? Your cousins? Your male workmates? The firemen who would carry you down a ladder out of a burning building?
Your pernicious anti-male attitudes have their origin in US feminist law professor, Catherine McKinnon’s statement: “All men are rapists, and that it all that they are.”
Since the vast majority of men are socialised to protect women and therefore value consensual, loving sexual activity with them, these paranoid notions are way off beam.
The feminist-driven “domestic violence industry” is part of an ever-expanding, tax-funded “bureaucracy of compassion” with its attendant caregivers, social workers, regulators, intellectuals and social scientists. Its use of the term “domestic violence” rather than the more gender-neutral “relationship violence” is based on the Marxist analysis of gender relations penned by Marx’s collaborator Friedrich Engels which presupposes a male ‘oppressor’ (“Within the family, man is the bourgeoisie, woman and children the proletariat”) and a female ‘victim.’
Feminists with a strong emotional investment in the presumption of an oppressive patriarchy base their assessment of men as “the violent sex” on “police, court, hospital and refuge data” while casually waving away numerous academic studies implicating both sexes equally in relationship violence. These seriously troubled sisters will cite police blotter statistics and other official data to falsely conclude that relationship violence is a male problem (“That’s just part of how ‘they’ treat ‘us’ as women”).
There are a number of compelling reasons why a man might be reluctant to complain to authorities that his wife assaulted him. These include fear of ridicule or being disbelieved; threats that if police are called his wife will level a counter-accusation and he’ll be the one arrested by an establishment predisposed to take her part; a reluctance to walk out of the home that he probably paid for; the likelihood that access to his children will be denied by a gender-biased Family Court should he leave to escape the violence; and fears for the children’s physical safety if he’s no longer around to protect them from a violent mother.
One of the saddest accounts of male victimisation by a violent female was that of an army drill sergeant in the United States, who placed his gun in his mouth at the dinner table and blew his brains out in front of his family, after the contrast between his macho parade ground persona and the reality of his miserable existence became too much to bear.
New Zealand has a network of Women’s Refuges but not a single Man’s Refuge. And if a man did show up at a Women’s Refuge seeking relief from a violent female partner, do you think he’d be admitted? Like police blotter statistics, “refuge data” clearly have significant limitations in terms of providing an accurate picture of relationship violence in our community.
US researcher, Dr Martin Fiebert examined 155 scholarly investigations, 126 empirical studies and 29 reviews and/or analyses in concluding that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 116,000 and can safely be regarded as statistically robust. Fiebert’s annotated bibliography, first published in Sexuality and Culture Volume 8, Number 3-4, Summer-Fall 2004, can be viewed online at http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm.
Contrary to the demonstrably false feminist picture of relationship violence, men and women are implicated in relationship violence in approximately equal numbers at all levels of severity as assessed by a standardised “Conflict Tactics Scale.” Both sexes are more or less equally represented in every category from throwing a teaspoon all the way up to murder. In some categories (e.g. punched, kicked, hit or slapped one’s partner), female involvement slightly outstripped that of males.
Approximately one third of violent incidents were found to be “he assaults her,” one third “she assaults him,” and one third “they assault each other.” It is also apparent that most of what is categorised as “relationship violence” is occasional, low level, and doesn’t result in serious injury, i.e. shoving, pulling, slapping, throwing small objects etc.
The most violent individuals, whether male or female, represent a tiny minority of those studied. Severely violent men typically used their fists and feet on spouses or partners. Severely violent women characteristically used weapons to even up the size difference or attacked spouses or partners when they were asleep or otherwise off-guard.
Erin Pizzey, who set up the first Women’s Refuge in England in the early 1970s, had a well-publicised falling out with the Sisterhood after she wrote a book claiming that many women presenting at her Chiswick Women’s Refuge were “at least as violent as the men they had left behind” and self-admittedly addicted to the adrenalin rush they got from provoking violent reactions in their male partners, though few enjoyed the violence itself. These women were repeatedly and often seriously verbally and physically violent both to their own children and to other women in the shelter.
The foregoing analysis demonstrates conclusively that relationship violence is in fact a human problem, not a gender issue as the feminist movement would have us believe. It is long overdue for women as a group to acknowledge the female contribution to such violence rather than simply blaming males for something women are, on all the evidence, equally involved in
“There is no “context” that justifies beating a child like that, you’re dissembling because you were wrong and have been caught out.”
Now that just shows a lack of imagination on your part. It also shows that you dont care what the specifics of the case were, you read the headline and thats all you need.
Zen knows a lot more than I do of the specifics of the case, and probably much much more than you. But you obviously dont care about the facts.
“There is also the block of 4 x 2 used on a 12 year old boy.”
And how did that case END?
“Neat move to ignore the FACT that rape in marriage was legal (right up to mid 80s).”
Shouldnt be too difficult to find the law which states that raping your wife is legal. There must be something in the Crimes Act exempting this, surely. Go on then, find it.
While you are at it, try and find the exemption for beating your wife.
“Hitting children is quite different.”
You are using that completely out of context.
Smacking children is quite different to beating them as well, you simply refuse to acknowledge the difference. I reckon anyone that can’t is pretty fucking stupid.
How many men were killed by their female partners last year in New Zealand, and what is the corresponding inverse figure? That’s one thing that can’t be left unreported, and is probably quite telling.
Interesting use of the term “industry”. So who benefits, I mean really benefits, out of domestic violence Michele? Seems a rather cynical view of an aspect of a country’s social services.
The reasons you gave for men not reporting violence must indeed be Absolutely compelling, given your claim that women are more frequently abusive, yet reported rates are so contrary to such a claim. It would probably rate as the greatest supression of violence reporting in recorded history, on quite a grand scale!
One question, I’m wondering if the following was an ambiguous statment on your behalf or was an accurate description of the study you mentioned.
You said “US researcher, Dr Martin Fiebert examined 155 scholarly investigations, 126 empirical studies and 29 reviews and/or analyses in concluding that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners.”
Did you mean that all the reports studied concluded that aggression was equal, or such was his conclusion after a study of reports of mixed conclusions?
P.s. I have a vague recollection of a law that a man could beat his wife with a pole so long as its diameter was less than that of his thumb or wrist. That ring bells with anyone else? (this is not in reference to your post Michele – I guess that whatever the study you refer to implies, the legal ‘playing field’ is skewed otherwise)
Kimble, please explain to us the diseased thought processes that legitimize acts that would be against the law if committed against adults when those same acts are performed on children.
Random thought for the day;
How will this bill affect the BDSM parlours that operate in the dark and seedy underbelly of our society?
I mean, it’s apparently illegal to smack your kids on the backside as punishment, but what about if you’re paying someone to PUNISH YOU in exactly the same way?
“I have a vague recollection of a law that a man could beat his wife with a pole so long as its diameter was less than that of his thumb or wrist.”
Rule of thumb? The original reference used by feminists in the 20th century to a supposed Rule of Thumb was in a legal commentary from back in 18th century about the pre-17th century way of doing things. Specifically it talked about a man correcting his wife the same way he would a child or an apprentice. Nothing was said about a specific Rule of Thumb though.
In fact the rule of thumb has only ever been referenced in common law, and it was only used an as example of what might have been okay in the past, but definitely isnt okay now.
It is a myth. No such law ever existed.
It was a fabrication by feminists with an obvious agenda and you bought it hook, line, and sinker.
PC Avenger, how many adults have you ever given a Time Out to?
I will concede that adults and children should be treated exactly the same, the very second you show that there is no difference between them.
Children are not adults.
You morons are having a problem seeing differences that ought to be plainly obvious.
“It was a fabrication by feminists with an obvious agenda and you bought it hook, line, and sinker.”
That would be why I said it rang a bell and had anyone heard of it. Spare the hissy bollocks will you?
“Children are not adults.
You morons are having a problem seeing differences that ought to be plainly obvious.
”
Right, so while we’re at it, why do you have to have the right to smack children because they are different? Do you smack everyone who’s different?
Phil – “I mean, it’s apparently illegal to smack your kids on the backside as punishment, but what about if you’re paying someone to PUNISH YOU in exactly the same way?”
It’s illegal to run up and crash-tackle someone on the street but you can join a club that allows you to do it on grass for eighty minutes every Saturday, same story I would imagine!
Kimble, none, because there are better ways to cause a change in behaviour. I might ask a similar question of you though: How many adults have you given a quick smack to, in the hope that it will cause lasting behaviour change, without maladaptive consequences?
No one is claiming that children are exactly the same as adults, and it is dishonest of you to suggest that this is the case.
The very people that support the discontinuation of physical punishment are well aware of the unique psychological characteristics of children, and this is the reason why they support it.
Kimble, please explain to us the diseased thought processes that legitimize acts that would be against the law if committed against adults when those same acts are performed on children.
Yes, it’s just awful, isn’t it? I’ve heard some of these child haters have a thing called “time out” or “go to your room,” in which they subject a child to arbitrary imprisonment for alleged misbehaviour – and yet that would be illegal if they did it to an adult. It’s just sick, I tell you!
Good point Psycho – If you tell a child they’re not allowed pudding until they finish their dinner, aren’t you just perpetuating a cycle of obesity and unhealthy dietary practices?!
And then there is the common line of “go outside and play” – surely placing children at unnecessary risk of developing skin cancer or melanoma, to say nothing of the heighted risk of ‘stranger danger’?
We really must be terrible people, clearly incapabale of the responsibility of raising little versions of ourselves
Anyone prating on about about “childrens rights” is actually talking about rights they intend to take away from parents and arrogate to the State.
A ‘right is classically defined as ‘the freedom to act without interference, according to one’s conscience.’ It means nothing unless the individual has the capacity to act upon their ‘right’ and children, by nature of their immaturity and inexperience, do not have that capacity. So they have people who act for them, in the form of the people who created them and who love them more than anyone else.
Those people, the adult parents, have a freedom to act according to their conscience, and within the law, with their children. It is that freedom which the children’s rights activists seek to remove and bestow on the state.
Marx claimed that society is evolving inexorably toward socialism through a process called dialectical materialism. An existing condition (thesis) comes into conflict with a new condition (antithesis) that is attempting to emerge. Out of the dialectical conflict between these two opposing forces a new, higher condition (synthesis) emerges. This is then put through the process again as the new thesis, until socialism is achieved.
Lenin expanded Marx’s dialectical analysis from its early focus on economic relationships to take in social and political relationships, thus widening the role of the revolutionary as a change agent. The task of the revolutionary was now to identify and exploit pressure points for dialectical conflict, thus undermining the legitimacy of the existing social and political order, and hastening the eventual triumph of socialism.
According to Marxist-Leninist ideology, the formative family is the institution within which children are inculcated into an acceptance of the hierarchical system of capitalist class relations. As Engels famously asserted in Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State: “Within the family, man is the bourgeoisie, women and children the proletariat.” For this reason, Marxists view subverting the family as a key political imperative.
Subverting and eradicating the preferred status of the formative family in favour of alternative arrangements removes it as an obstacle to the implementation of totalitarian agendas. Removing men from the family by offering financial incentives for single parenthood (Nanny State as substitute husband), and encouraging homosexual “marriage” and adoptive parenting (despite the known impermanence of the majority of gay relationships) opens up an expanded role for the state in picking up the pieces for ever-increasing numbers of children.
The underlying goal is for children to be socialised by the state, rather than by their parents. Every totalitarian system has sought to remove children from parental influence (e.g. Hitler Youth, Red Guards, Komsomol) so that they can be unceasingly indoctrinated with statist values.
As Hilary Clinton famously said (with acclamation from socialists around the world): “It takes a village to raise a child.” This, of course ignores those who don’t want their children raised by a village.
Chilldren’s ‘rights’ were long ago identified by radical leftards as a hot button issue that could be harnessed to undermine the traditional family and the Judeo-Christian foundation of Western culture, thus expanding the role of the state into personal relationships once thought to lie beyond its purview.
Green MP Sue Bradford, sponsor of the contentious anti-smacking bill, claims that even the mild and occasional use of force against children is never permissable.
Yet for almost her entire political life, this former Workers Communist League stirrer has defended and idolised regimes where the ultimate use of force is deployed against citizens at the whim of the State without even a whiff of due process.
I’m talking about “People’s Republics” – places where you do what you’re told or get shot.
Does Ms Bradford care more about the “rights” of children or about subverting the authority of parents and replacing it with that of the State?
Michele Cabiling
If I am the ultimate man hater you are surely the ultimate woman hater.
Perhaps if my previous blog had been posted, showing me telling BILLY that thanks to guys like him, I am reminded that all men are not interested in controlling women, that would have satisfied you. I have no idea what happened to my earlier blog.
Get off your high horse. You are incorrect. There is at least one male refuge in New Zealand which is in line with the current gender need.
When we become a society that recognises verbal skills rather than physical skills, then perhaps we’ll have women and men using those . At present it has to be about defending ourselves. There’s an old saying Michele – men protect us from other men but who will protect us from many of them.
I’m sure you know as well as I do Michele that women had to go hard like men in order to survive let alone succeed in the business world. That is still the case. If men had accepted women and their unique talents of management and teamwork then as they are increasingly doing now, then the hard woman you talk about may have not occurred.
Yes this world has become more violent because that is what is valued in our society. We have macho men putting down the nanny state when it seeks to make society a fairer one that considers everyone.
I recently read a book that said any society that does not go to war risks being ravished (that is the word he used) by warmongering countries.
I’ll probably be quite happy with one of the firewomen rescuing me, Michele. There is absolutely no way you will convince me that women are just as violent as men. There is also the fear factor of men raping women who dare to question them in relationships. It is a lot more difficult for a woman to rape a man, or are you going to suggest that it is just as easy, too. In my world Michele any male is capable of rape but 90% of them won’t because they are the Billys of this world. There is also an increasing statistic of rape of boys and men also. Are you going to blame women for 50% of that too. Be real, Michele. Husbands and sons and brothers and uncles do commit incest (and some women) and rape. Just not mine and hopefully not yours.
Yes MATTHEW PILOTT, I do remember the thin pole to beat the wife routine. No idea where I read or heard it though, sorry.
This garbage you are spouting Michele about the feminist brigade – plusseeeeeeeeeese. I am me. I don’t belong to anyone other than myself. But from what I gather, a feminist was a person who objected to being treated like a doormat and enduring anything else that was delivered behind closed doors. It was the splitting off by other groups that gave feminist belief a bad name.
It’s a stupid argument, but it seems like it just won’t die. Along similar lines, I’m not entitled to force an adult to wear nappies, or subject them to me removing the nappies and wiping their arse, but nobody would have been very keen on me if I hadn’t subjected my kids to it.
The presenters of this argument always claim to recognise that children are not little adults, then proceed to argue as though they were. The process of turning the small animals we give birth to into functioning members of society is not simply a long, difficult one, it requires us to impose our own will on them and enforce behavioural rules. Whatever method you adopt to enforce behavioural rules on your child would be illegal for you to impose on another adult – that’s just a “well, duh-uh.” It’s irrelevant to any discussion we might have over whether one method of enforcement is superior to another.
“There is absolutely no way you will convince me that women are just as violent as men.”
I think that says it all.
“any male is capable of rape but 90% of them won’t because they are the Billys of this world”
Hey Milt, are you one of the 10% of men who are rapists?
NZ:
4.0 million people
2.0 million men
1.4 million men between the ages of 15 and 75
ergo 140,000 rapists in New Zealand
Hey Milt, are you one of the 10% of men who are rapists?
Not so far. It’s a question that takes an adult lifetime to answer, however I’m reasonably confident the answer will remain no.
You do need to factor that in to your count, Kimble – many men alive today are not rapists right now, but will be by the time they die. So the count is actually of how many men reach death without ever having forced or intimidated someone else into sex with them. Personally, I suspect 90% isn’t over-generous for that figure.
“The process of turning the small animals we give birth to’
Clearly you have the right name, as what kind of psycho would call beautiful children “small animals” ? Mr Milt I find your comment both offensive and disturbing ?You are one very, very sick unit !! What kind of creature are you ? I can’t fathom your maliciousness you nasty creep!!
Infact psycho milt – I will make sure your callous comment is spread around blogosphere you sadist creep !!What a despicable deviant and a total disgrace to humanity !!!