Disciplining, chastisement and physical child abuse: perceptions and attitudes of the British Pakistani community

IRFAN, S. and COWBURN, M. (2004). Disciplining, chastisement and physical child abuse: perceptions and attitudes of the British Pakistani community. Journal of Muslim minority affairs, 24 (1), 89-98.

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Abstract

There are a number of cross-cultural differences in people's perspectives of what constitutes physical abuse of children. The focus of the present study was to explore the British Pakistani community's perception about physical child abuse and to understand more about the values held by them in relation to child protection. The study aimed to discover issues that are important to protect the children from harm, and to describe the possibilities these issues present. The study used a questionnaire survey that focused on 16-25-year-old British Pakistani's, exploring their experiences of childhood, of physical punishment and physical child abuse. The findings indicated that although serious child abuse was not experienced by most of the respondents, 75% of respondents experienced some kind of physical punishment as part of their childhood experience. However, 72% of respondents who received such punishment in childhood accepted it as an appropriate disciplining method. The future research and policy implications with prevention in mind are discussed.

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