The vast majority of Americans agree; Americans should make laws for Americans. This attitude dates back at least as far as July, 1776, when we asserted, in part, that “it is the Right of the People…to institute…Government…on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” That text was intended – and still intends – to declare our independence, period, and not just our independence from Great Britain at that time.
So how is it that now, less than 225 years removed, so many are looking to surrender that independence through the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), by giving to this outside body politic the right to tell us how to raise and train our own children? It is the right of Americans to make American law. But any treaty we ratify, according to Article VI of our Constitution, becomes “the Supreme law of the land,” overriding any conflicting state law on the subject – and state law is the source of virtually every American law regarding families and children.
It is true that, in some respects, ratifying this treaty will not affect our laws. The gruesome abuses we are told this treaty would outlaw, such as child trafficking, child prostitution, and enlisting child soldiers for war, are already illegal in the United States, (and under the optional U.N. protocols that address these issues and which we have already ratified) so passing this treaty will make no difference in those areas. But in other areas, areas where Americans enjoy the freedom to disagree, the treaty would bind us to a rule of law which we have never chosen to adopt for ourselves.
Consider as but one example the practice of corporal punishment. Some Americans today hold that it is demeaning and emotionally harmful, so they refuse to spank their children, raising them instead on a series of time-outs and other restrictions. Other American families were raised on the premise that “to spare the rod is to spoil the child,” and they seek to shape the young lives in their care with lovingly administered swats on the backside. The bottom line, though, is that it is up to us as free Americans to decide for ourselves, and so far no American body politic has seen fit to outlaw the practice of spanking, nor to involve itself in that area of private family life at all. Hitting that brings physical damage constitutes a crime of abuse in any one of the 50 states, but reasonable, non-harmful spanking for disciplinary purpose is left to the discretion of the individual parent.
This would not be so under the UNCRC.
According to a February 18 report by Capital News FM in Nairobi, Kenya, that nation is seeing a push to outlaw all forms of corporal punishment in all areas – including in the home – at the urging of international non-government organizations (NGOs). Capital FM reported: “Led by Save the Child-Sweden, the NGOs urged for the repeal of the clause advocating the use of reasonable corporal punishment ‘because the section is ambiguous’.” This means that in Kenya, the government is being urged to change its duly adopted laws, and that push is coming from such “interested parties” as “Save the Child-Sweden.”
As it stands, “reasonable corporal punishment” is permitted under Kenyan law, and regularly practiced in Kenyan society, the use of a switch or rod (“caning”) being the most common form, because this is apparently the will of the Kenyan people, a part of the Kenyan culture. This is not an acceptable part of the United Nations’ view of how the world should be, however. According to U.N. Regional Director Hans Ridemark as reported in the article, “One of the main recommendations of the statute is the total prohibition of corporal punishment; the example that we mentioned here made us aware of legal existence of corporal punishment in some countries which is surreal…”
Surreal? Really? That statement is hard to believe after just a quick look at the UN’s Concluding Observations coming out of its most recent session.
The fiftieth session of the UN child rights committee, concluded January 30, 2009, included reports from six countries around the world – Moldova, North Korea, Chad, Congo, Malawi, and the Netherlands – and corporal punishment is still legal and practiced in every single one of them. (Although the Netherlands proper may have outlawed the practice, its territories of Aruba and Netherland Antilles both permit it.) In its concluding observations to Moldova, for instance, the Committee expressed “[concern] at reports that corporal punishment is a common phenomenon at home and is frequently used to discipline children at school.” In their remarks to Malawi, the Committee gave praise “that the Penal Code Amendment Bill…” (pending, not current, legislation) “…will explicitly abolish corporal punishment,” but goes on to acknowledge that “enforcement still proves difficult.”
Hans Ridemark admitted to Capital FM, “[w]e have to be extremely careful how laws to prohibit corporal punishment in the home are implemented. Prosecuting parents or even fining them is not going to help children….”
Is it fair, then, to call “surreal” a practice which is the norm throughout the nations of the world, a "common phenomenon" in many of them, which the UN confronts regularly, and enforcement against which is not only difficult, but admittedly unhelpful to children? It sounds more like UN rhetoric than a statement of fact.
No, the existence of corporal punishment is not surreal. It is a nearly-universally accepted means of disciplining errant children, despite the best efforts of the United Nations and its “Non-government Organizations”. But even this is not the point.
The point is, if we are to remain self-governing then, by definition, the decision of whether or not to outlaw such a thing in our homes should be ours to make. As Americans, we have the right to decide for ourselves. We can agree or disagree, debate, protest, and petition our legislature. Some swear by the efficacy of corporal discipline, while others espouse a less physical approach. But what we do not want, and what our existing stance already demonstrates we do not need, is for the United Nations, its Committee, or “Save the Child-Sweden” to tell us how we are to be ruled in our very homes.