More and more countries and cities have begun to ban physical punishment in children and adolescents, because these are already recognized as a form of violence. Some time ago we shared that in France they had finally been banned, after the Council of Europe made a call for attention on this issue.
Is now Coahuila, a state in Mexico, which joins this initiative and has prohibited by law physical punishment in children, and although this is something positive, it has caused opinions divided into social networks.
The new law in Coahuila
It has been in this state of northern Mexico where a modification was made to the Law of the State System for the Guarantee of the Human Rights of Boys and Girls, where it is established that it is prohibited to correct children with spanking (cheeks) and any other type of violence.
According to this move modification to the law, Parents or relatives who do not comply with it and add children through physical punishment may end up in front of a civic judge, because it is not considered an educational measure, but the use of violence against minors.
“Any act tending to inflict some kind of physical or psychological violence is considered to violate the child”, Comments José Julián Vázquez Favela, head of the Office of the Defense of Girls, Children and the Family (PRONIFF), according to information from Excélsior.
This new law is found in article 431 of the Family Law and states that: "people who carry out the protested homeland of a girl or boy must educate it conveniently and have the power to correct it in a prudent and moderate manner; in no case this power will imply any form of abuse”.
The reactions in news and social networks
After announcing this modification to the law in Coahuila, the opinions were divided, although unfortunately it can be observed that predominates those of those who are in favor of punishing children and adolescents with physical blows or corrective measures.
And is that the issue of corrective or corporal punishment in Mexico is one that is still very normalized. In most families, it is still common today for parents to use these methods to teach their children to "behave."
There is even a very famous phrase: "a spanking (cheek) is better on time", referring to the most convenient thing is to correct the child through the blows and thus prevent him from growing up being a person without values or laziness.
Spanking does NOT work to educate children
The argument of some parents after learning about the prohibition of physical punishment is that "As we are their parents, we decide how to correct them"However, it is more than proven that such punishments, such as whipping, do not work and are even harmful to children, as explained in a study after 50 years of research.
Despite this and that we have seen clear examples of other countries that have banned such violent actions against children, the mentality that exists in Mexico is still very closed on this issue.
As a Mexican and informed mother, I definitely notice that there is still much to do in our country, and I think it is mainly because the generations that we are now having children, we were educated with blows, so we somehow grew up seeing and thinking that this was normal or right, although today we have learned that it is not so.
There are many powerful reasons not to hit a child, starting because violence generates more violence and that nobody deserves to be hit, less a child. Hopefully soon this way of thinking is what becomes "normal" and other states, to cover the whole country, follow the example of Coahuila and prohibit physical punishment.
