KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 27 — When the Women, Family and Community Development minister proposed to criminalise caning children in line with international convention, it reignited a decades-old debate on whether parents had a right to use the rod as a way to discipline their wayward offspring.

The reaction was varied; parents nationwide both applauded and castigated minister Datuk Seri Rohani Abdul Karim for the idea, despite the government’s clarification a day later that the caning was to revise the existing court punishment for convicted child offenders and was not yet finalised.

Some parents saw caning as a necessary evil, to teach their young on the right way to behave where others saw the rotan as a tool with the potential to inflict pain on the defenceless and innocent.

For caning

A mother of a five-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl said she only caned her children as a punishment for wrongdoings and not out of anger.

“I caned both of them since they were three. My plan is not to cane them after six years of age because it won’t be effective anyway and they’ll be old enough to reason with me,” said the 33-year-old, who asked only to be identified as Jamie.

“I cane them because it is my choice of parenting. For some children, the cane is effective but for some is not, so why can’t parents choose the way is best for their family?” she asked.

She also said banning the cane does not mean parents who intend to abuse their children wouldn’t find other ways to hurt them and pointed to recent news reports of a seven-year-old girl who weighed only 7kg when found alone and starving in a closet.

Asked her thoughts on caning underage boys in court for crimes, Jamie said it should only be used if the method has been proven effective in deterring repeats of the offence.

Currently, Section 91(1)(g) of the Child Act 2001 allows a male child to be sentenced to caning not more than 10 strokes if found guilty of criminal offences.

Another mother interviewed also saw no harm in parents using the rod on their child, saying it should be allowed “to a certain degree” and as long as it does not cause bruising.

“We all have been there and turned out fine. Without the cane, we would have strayed in school, joining bad hats, et cetera. Kids these days have been spared from the cane, and I think they have no respect for the elders,” 36-year-old Evelyn, told Malay Mail Online.

The mother of three children, aged 11, six and four, confessed to having wielded the cane but said it was more of a scare tactic to get her children to behave, especially when it came to completing their homework.

When it comes to caning in court though, Evelyn said it was unnecessary for petty crimes.

Against caning

Two other mothers who were spared the rod growing up voiced their abhorrence for caning, arguing that it was an ineffective and violent method to discipline children and more likely to cause trauma.

Nik Elin Nik Rashid, who founded a group called Wibawa that aims to help anyone with any marital and child custody disputes, said she had been pinched by her mother when she was 11 and would forever remember the incident.

“So I don’t want to implement any form of punishment on my children. I have slapped them out of anger but it was more of my inability to control myself. I would not be teaching anything if I myself don’t know how to control my own temper,” the 53-year-old said.

The mother of five children, whose ages ranged from 23 to 11, reiterated that she is against any form of violence or “aggressive punishment” and that caning in all forms should be abolished.

“Children would react better to counselling and psychology rather than physical,” Nik Elin said, relating that she orders her children to stand in a corner and reflect on their behaviour when they act up.

Education activist Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim is another parent who believes that children respond better to reason than being hit.

The chairman of the Parent Action Group for Education said violence leads to further violence in an endless loop, countering the arguments of parents who insist they have grown up to be well-adjusted adults despite being caned as children.

“Although some adults have turned a new leaf after being caned as a child, most haven’t.

“In fact many in their adulthood, they have retaliated by beating their own children and even their wives, not realising the consequences which in turn leads to abuse,” said the mother of four children aged 22 to 17.

She added: “A family that practices caning is not a happy family”.

Another mother, 36-year-old Cindy Ng who said nonchalantly that she was caned as a child because it was “part of our Asian culture”, is now against caning of children.

She said she had caned her eldest when he was four once because she and her husband thought “it was okay to cane” but they had “instantly regretted it”.

“It doesn’t make him any better and it hurts us bad each time, it’s not worth the hurt,” the mother of two boys said.