Children seek ban on smacking

Children seek ban on smacking

LONDON (AFP): Some 100 British children marched Saturday to Prime Minister Tony Blair's residence, demanding that parents be barred from smacking their children as a means of punishment.

The young children and teens, organized by the children's rights group Article 12, were demanding an end to the practice, allowed by an 1860 law, in a formal letter to Blair.

"What we are saying is that all physical punishment of children including smacking should not be seen to be acceptable in the eyes of the law," said 16-year-old Newcastle resident James Anderson.

Corporal punishment was banned in British schools in 1986, but only last September in private schools.

But the British government said in January that parents still had the right to punish their children by smacking them, provided that the punishment was given in a "loving and affectionate setting" and without aid of any instrument.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 1998 that smacking was illegal.