Photo:Marco Aurélio Conde/Unsplash
TLDR: A mother who violently punished her 10 and 6-year-old daughters by repeatedly slapping, kicking and pinching them has pleaded guilty to child abuse.
The abuse was discovered by the girls’ father when he returned one day to find that the older daughter’s teeth were broken. He then checked their home CCTV footage, which revealed various other incidents of abuse.
The girls had kept quiet about the abuse for years as they were afraid of more beatings.
More thoughts: Most parents occasionally discipline their children to discourage bad behaviour, but sometimes physical punishment crosses the line into abuse. The question of where this boundary lies has been debated at length. In any event, where injury is caused, it is likely that child abuse has been committed.
Other than physical abuse, abuse can also take place in other forms, such as emotional and sexual abuse as well as neglect. Find out more about the various categories of child abuse in Lex and Rex: The Race for Truth.
There are several pieces of legislation that address the prohibitions against, and penalties for, child abuse by parents, key of these being the Children and Young Persons Act. Section 5 of the CYPA stipulates that the penalty for each instance of child abuse is a fine of up to $8000, or jail for up to 8 years, or both.
This news article does not indicate the specific legislation that the mother has been charged under, but states that she can be fined up to $4000, jailed up to 4 years, or both in respect of each charge. Since there is no other legislation that stipulates this penalty, it is likely that the news article has erroneously cited the pre-2020 penalty for child abuse. In fact, this penalty has been doubled since early 2020. Another lesson to always critically consider and check everything that you read!