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Saturday, 15 April, 2000, 15:57 GMT 16:57 UK
Children in anti-smacking protest
![]() One young protester and his campaign message
Hundreds of children have marched through central London to demand an end to smacking.
They paraded along the streets of Westminster chanting "Stop the smacking", and waving placards which read Violence is not the answer and We have rights too. The children ended their protest at Downing Street, where they handed in a letter addressed to Tony Blair, urging him to ban all physical punishment of children. The demonstration was organised by children and teenagers from campaign group Article 12, a young people's organisation dedicated to promoting children's rights to expression.
"We want to make a political statement to the whole world that children should not be smacked or hurt in any way by anyone. "A lot of the little children who are here today have got a lot to say but they are the ones that don't get listened to." Another teenage protester, Kate Wood from north London, said: "We believe that all forms of physical punishment are wrong and therefore smacking should be illegal." And she criticised government proposals to tighten the law on assaults on children, which stop short of an outright ban.
The children were given strong support from a retired chaplain, the Rev Charles Dodd, who said all physical punishment should be banned. "Smacking is the root of all violence which is current in our society," he said. "There is no such thing as a loving smack." And the 70-year-old churchman said the Church of England should issue an "unequivocal statement" to say that it did not support smacking. Tony Blair, whose fourth child is due to be born in August, was not at Downing Street to meet them.
Smacking has already been banned in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Cyprus, Croatia and Latvia. Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, Belgium and the Republic of Ireland are all in the process of legislating against physically rebuking children. But in the United States the law varies from state to state, with caning still allowed.
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