Sweden’s anti-smacking law could get even more chilling

Sweden is often hailed as a pioneer of anti-smacking laws, having outlawed the practice in the 1970s.

The law change has in fact been hugely problematic. The country has seen an alarming spike in child-on-child violence.

The change has also had a chilling effect on parents, who can be convicted of assault for the kind of parenting most of us take for granted.

Sweden’s ‘Penal Code’ states that the infliction of “pain upon another” is punishable by up to two year’s imprisonment.

The word of a child is enough. A mum or dad who administers a light smack on the wrist to a misbehaving child could be in line for serious punishment.

Not content with this, Swedish officials are this month urging the country’s Government to crack down even harder on parents.

Anita Wickström, author of an inquiry into ‘children’s rights’, is calling on Sweden’s centre-left coalition Government to amend the Penal Code.

She wants the law to be worded without reference to pain. In other words, for the action of smacking itself to be criminal – regardless of its effect.

By this logic, a parent who tugs their child’s arm, or taps them on the hand to correct their behaviour could be guilty of assault.

The Ombudsman for Children – a Government agency tasked with upholding children’s rights – is fully behind the change.

This development shows the kind of creeping totalitarianism that results from moves to interfere in family life.

It comes after a legal report confirming that in New Zealand, ten years after a ban on smacking was implemented, good parents are being criminalised. This is despite the repeated assertions of politicians that this would not happen.

Lawmakers in Wales and Scotland should sit up and take note. Both Sweden and New Zealand show that smacking bans are detrimental to family life.

Our politicians should not be so eager to make the same mistakes.