Southern African perspectives on banning corporal punishment – a comparison of Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe
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Date
2019
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Brill Nijhoff
Abstract
This chapter reviews recent judicial and legislative developments concerning
steps towards – and against – the abolition of corporal punishment in four
closely connected southern African jurisdictions: South Africa, Namibia, Botswana
and Zimbabwe. Not only are these countries neighbours, they share a
common legal heritage as recipients of a blend of Roman Dutch law and English
law and, in the case of Namibia, the country was, until independence
in 1990, a protectorate of South Africa with laws and institutions in common.
Hence, all countries under discussion inherited from English law the “reasonable
chastisement” defence available to parents utilising physical force against
their children. In short, this meant that charges of assault could be countered
with the common law defence that the parent was merely exercising legitimate
parental authority. Although the scope of the application of the defence
did narrow to exclude the most egregious forms of abuse in recent decades,
in the face of mounting evidence of child abuse and changing social norms,
it remained intact. This was the case even in the face of developing legislative
measures to counter child abuse in various welfare and protection statutes in
all of the four countries at defined points in the 20th century.
Description
Keywords
Southern Africa, Corporal punishment, Children's rights, Legislation, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Roman Dutch law, English law
Citation
Sloth-Nielsen, J. (2019) Southern African perspectives on banning corporal punishment – a comparison of Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. In: Leviner, P. et al ed., Corporal punishment of children: Comparative legal and social developments towards prohibition and beyond. Leiden: Brill/Nijhoff