Did the ‘anti-smacking’ legislation reduce Child Abuse?

A Growing list of child homicides in New Zealand suggests that the repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961 has had no positive impact whatsoever on reducting the incidence of child abuse and child homicides in New Zealand. If anything the problem has become worse. The legislation, championed by Green MP Sue Bradford, that criminalises every parent that uses any form of force “for the purpose of correction” must be repealed. The latest shocking report of yet another child homicide must cause all decent-minded citizens to cry out “Enough is enough! We must fix this disasterous problem!”

Murdered boy endured final weeks of torture
Saturday May 16, 2009
By Beck Vass

….. For the seven days before Duwayne Pailegutu died, he was kept inside his mother and stepfather’s small flat in Nelson – so no one could see he had been beaten so badly he was paralysed, incontinent, and slowly suffocating on his own blood.

The left side of his body was disabled after repeated blows to the right side of his head which caused a stroke, and he struggled to eat or drink.

In addition to the haemorrhage, an autopsy found at least 10 deep bruises to his scalp – some of them inflicted by the shoes of his stepfather as the little boy cowered in the corner of his Fergusson St bedroom.

A further 75 bruises were found over the rest of his small body.

For the week before he died, Duwayne sat, partially paralysed and fitted with nappies, slowly suffocating on blood which he inhaled into his lungs as he vomited during “exercises” in which his stepfather made repeated blows to his stomach to make him cough up blood.

In an attempt to “shock” Duwayne into movement, Joachim dipped his paralysed foot into boiling water, leaving the largest of four scald wounds on his right leg……

When he became frustrated that Duwayne could not move, Joachim threw him against a wall.

And for the six weeks before his death on July 2 last year, Duwayne had been living with three broken ribs.

For full report: see:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10572666