Child abuse continues in Sweden
Sunder Katwala is incorrect in asserting that since smacking was banned in Sweden, the number of child deaths at the hands of parents has fallen to zero (Comment, last week).
Figures published in the Unicef report ‘Child Maltreatment Deaths in Rich Nations’ (September 2003), reveal that during a five-year period in the 1990s, deaths from maltreatment occurred at an annual rate of 0.5 or 0.6 children per 100,000 children aged under 15 in Sweden, compared with 0.4 or 0.9 in the UK. A BBC investigation in June 2004 concluded that the rate of child mortality at the hands of parents or carers in Sweden is at a comparable level with the UK.
Following Sweden’s ban on smacking in 1979, there was a 489 per cent increase in physical child abuse cases classified as criminal assaults between 1981-1994. None of the four countries with the lowest child maltreatment death rates (Spain, Greece, Italy and Ireland) has a ban on smacking.
Norman Wells
Director, Family Education Trust
Twickenham, Middlesex
Published in the Observer, 22 January 2006.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/jan/22/letters.theobserver