Office of the Ombudsman, Samoa‘s National Human Rights Institution Submission to the Committee on the Rights of the Child – September 2015 pregnant girls to remain in school or provide alternative options for them to continue their schooling while pregnant as well as once they become mothers through an outreach and education campaign. 9 Child abuse 9.1 Corporal punishment within the family and village 58. Samoa is not meeting its obligations under Article 19 of the Convention as it fails to prohibit all forms of corporal punishment in the family and community. 59. Hitting a child is a common form of physical punishment in Samoa. The norm of hitting children makes it difficult to distinguish between discipline and abuse.51 Children and parents often accept violent punishment as unacceptable form of discipline, not realising it amounts to abuse. Indeed, the SLRC has outlined a number of court cases where children have died at the hands of parents administering corporal punishment.52 60. The matter of corporal punishment in the family is currently addressed under the Infant Ordinance Act 1961.This Act defines wilful ill-treatment of a child likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury as an offence punishable by fine or imprisonment.53However, the Act does not define what constitutes ―unnecessary suffering or injury‖. Further, section 14 of the Act recognises the rights of parents and other caretakers to administer ‗reasonable punishment‘ to a child under their care without defining what is reasonable.54 The current draft of the Child Care and Protection Bill, designed to update Samoa‘s law to implement the Convention, does not address this issue. SLRC final report on the Bill recommended that the issue should first be addressed through awareness and training programmes prior to legislating against corporal punishment in homes.55 61. It is apparent that corporal punishment by a family member or other caregiver is still a regular occurrence in Samoa. The findings of the Government‘s Child Protection Baseline Report for Samoa 2013 found that an overwhelming majority (77%) of caregivers surveyed used physical (corporal) punishment and over half (51.4%) of children surveyed experienced physical punishment 51 UNICEF, A situational analysis of children, women and youth, available at: http://www.unicef.org/pacificislands/Samoa_sitan.pdf[accessed 25 June 2015] at 43. 52 SLRC, Child Protection Legislation Report 2013, available at: http://www.samoalawreform.gov.ws/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Care-and-Protection-Legislation-toProtect-Children-Issues-Paper.pdf[accessed 25 June 2015] at 9-10. 53 Infant Ordinance Act 1961, s. 12. 54 SLRC, Child Protection Legislation Report 2013, available at: http://www.samoalawreform.gov.ws/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Care-and-Protection-Legislation-toProtect-Children-Issues-Paper.pdf[accessed 25 June 2015] at 13. 55 SLRC,CHILD CARE AND PROTECTION LEGISLATION: Final Report 11/13, available at: http://www.samoalawreform.gov.ws/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Child-Care-and-ProtectionLegislation-Final-Report-Final.pdf [accessed 28 August 2015] at 57. 19