Committee to Repeal Section 43 of the Criminal Code of Canada
The Repeal 43 Committee is a national, voluntary committee of lawyers, paediatricians, social workers and educators formed in 1994 to advocate repeal of section 43 of the Criminal Code of Canada.
It is an offence under our Criminal Code to use force against anyone without their consent. This right to personal security is the most fundamental of all human rights. It is a protection against assault that all adults take for granted.
Children do not have the full benefit of this protection because section 43 of the Criminal Code justifies hitting children for disciplinary or "correction" reasons. This violates a child's right to the equal protection and benefit of the law guaranteed by our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
It contravenes the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child. It violates a child's dignity and shows a lack of respect. It
can lead to serious physical and emotional harm.
www.Repeal43.org
Affair led to mother murdering her own kids
Days after buying another woman Valentine's Day flowers, a Sydney father came home to find a trail of blood leading him to the bodies of his two young children lying next to their mother, a court has been told.
Australian Associated Press
Aug 24 2009
The woman had given the couple's three-year-old daughter and four-year-old son rat poison and an unidentified pink liquid before smothering them and killing them, court papers said.
She then tried to take her own life, the NSW Supreme Court was told.
Doctors agree the mother, from Canley Heights in Sydney's west, was suffering from "major depression" when she poisoned her children on February 19 last year.
She has pleaded not guilty to the two murders by reason of mental illness.
As her judge-alone trial began, the mother's lawyer told Justice Clifton Hoeben his client didn't think life was worth living after learning about her husband's affair. More..
Hitting defenceless children must be ended
The Telegraph Journal, Maritimes Canada, Letter to the Editor, published January19,2010
Charles W. Moore uses an unpublished, and hence unverifiable, study to express approval of spanking and "the strap" as used 50 years ago during his school days. His approval is based on "thousands of years of parenting," the American College of Pediatricians, and Section 43 of our Criminal Code.
For "thousands of years" children were treated as the property of parents with few rights of their own. Beatings and floggings in the name of discipline were the order of the day. This historical legacy was only seriously challenged in the last century and is hardly a sound basis for current policy.
With respect to the American College of Pediatricians, its approval of spanking is not at all persuasive.
It left the long-established and respected American Academy of Pediatrics in order to promote its own extreme views on various social issues, including corporal punishment.
Unlike the College, the Academy clearly recommends against spanking.
As for Section 43 of the Criminal Code, its approval of corporal punishment reflects the understanding of children and discipline at the time it came into our Code in 1892. Well over 100 Canadian organizations as well as several parliamentary committees agree that this legacy of hitting defenceless children must be ended.
CORINNE ROBERTSHAW
Repeal 43 Committee, Toronto
