Monday 13 January 2014

Children's rights in Sweden and Malaysia

Children's rights in Sweden and Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur:  A Malaysian couple has reportedly been arrested by the Swedish police for allegedly disciplining their child who refused to pray. According to sources, the couple has been detained after a report was made by one of their children to a teacher who consequently reported them to the Swedish police.

This arrest raised two questions: 1) What is children's rights and 2) What is the difference between a child's rights in Malaysia and Sweden?

To understand what children's rights is, we first have to understand what is human rights.

Human rights is "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being."

UNICEF defines children's rights as "human rights for every child and adolescent up to the age of 18, regardless of where they are born, their race or ethnicity, whether they are a boy or girl, rich or poor, able or disabled, HIV-negative or HIV-positive."

In Sweden The Convention on the Rights of the Child was ratified by Sweden following a decision by the Riksdag in 1990. This goes in line with Sweden’s infamous anti spanking laws introduced in 1979 which clarified the country’s stance on physical punishment and child abuse.

The law states that “a child may not be subjected to physical punishment or other injurious or humiliating treatment.” 35 years later, public attitudes have changed – creating a whole new generation of Swedish citizens who have never been hit.

Since then, other countries in Europe have also instituted the bans, as have New Zealand and some countries in Africa and Americas.

Children’s rights in Malaysia have been steadily picking up since the country acceded to the Convention of the rights of the Child (CRC) in 1995.

The Child Act 2001 (Act 611) is a key piece of legislation that forms the protective legal environment for children in the country. However this act still retains the right of corporal punishment for children.

Sharmila Sekaran, Chairperson of Voice of the Children explains that there is no difference between children’s rights in Malaysia and the rest of the world.

However, when it comes to physical punishment, she believes that there is a fine line between spanking as a correction tool for children and physical abuse.

She said that there has been research done which showed that children are acutely intelligent and aware of their environment. The research also showed that there are better methods to deal with children than corporal punishment.

Sharmila adds that there should be a healthy debate between parents, teachers and the government on how to discipline children and what options are out there.

Astro Awani 

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