Vucic reacts to law dealing with corporal punishment of children that has divided Serbia, minister also speaks

Photo: Tanjug/Jadranka Ilic

The banning of corporal punishment of children through amendments to the Family Law has led to allegations that "the state will control the home" in Serbia, and "criminally prosecute slapping and spanking (children)", which, according to the relevant ministry, are incorrect and unacceptable interpretations.

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The public debate on the draft amendments to the law ended ten days ago, but the controversy has not subsided. President Aleksandar Vucic is asking the Government to carefully consider all objections.

It is urgent to make amendments to the law, which has been in force for more than two decades,  according to the relevant ministry. It is necessary to harmonize it with the ratified conventions and agreements, as well as with a European Commission report which is demanding that Serbia explicitly ban child marriages, as well as corporal punishment within the family.

This is provided for in the draft law, but the second amendment is for many people difficult to accept.

Many fear that someone could abuse the instance of even a light spank meant to discipline a child, to report the parents to the authorities.

In order to prevent this from happening, the draft law needs a precise definition of what corporal punishment entails, the Judiciary Trade Union believes.

"The Committee for the Rights of the Child has clearly defined the principles by which corporal punishment should be determined, in order to prevent abuses - both too harsh of a ban, i.e. excessive penalizing of parents, but also too lenient solutions due to which certain behaviors would not be identified," says Aleksandra Arnautovic from the Judiciary Trade Union.

The relevant ministry reminds that four years ago, Serbia adopted the General Protocol for the Protection of Children from Violence, which specifies what constitutes for corporal punishment.

Normalized violence

The ministry accepted a fifth out of more than 250 comments to the draft law it received. An application that was supposed to be used to analyze the prevalence of violence, and which many interpreted as a tool that would allow children to report and blackmail their parents, has been removed from the text.

"Nowhere in the law does it say that children will be taken away from parents. It is necessary to talk to parents, provide psychological and sociological support by social welfare centers' experts and suggest that they eliminate shortcomings in the exercise of their parental rights," says Minister for Family Care and Demography Jelena Zaric Kovacevic.

Psychologist and psychotherapist Snezana Andjelic believes that this is not about creating hostility towards parents, but about protecting children.

"To a large extent there is normalized violence and it's used almost every day, often without realizing the consequences. It causes fear, insecurity, arouses aggression and imposes a model of behavior - 'when I have a problem, I will use force'," said Andjelic.

The debate also put some other amendments to the Family Law on the back burner, such as the abolition of the threshold of 10 years of age when it comes to a child's right to express their opinion in administrative and judicial proceedings.

(Telegraf.rs/RTS)