Cult flees to US [from Canada] to keep beating children

August 3, 2001

<h3>Cult flees to US [from Canada] to keep beating children</h3>

Source: The Times (UK)

Published: August 3 2001

Author: KATTY KAY IN WASHINGTON

MORE than 100 women and children belonging to the fundamentalist Church of God have fled from Canada to the United States after Canadian social services clamped down on the Church’s policy of disciplining children with a rod or belt.

Seven children, aged 6 to 14, were taken into care from a Church of God family last month after their parents were asked by social workers to stop using straps or sticks to discipline them. When the parents refused, police helped to take the children away.

Fearing Canadian social workers might take more children into care, other local Church families fled to Indiana and Ohio, where they are staying with Church of God families. The group of 28 mothers and 80 children described themselves as refugees and said they might seek asylum.

Church of God followers believe that the Bible orders them to use an object such as a stick, strap or switch to persuade their children to conform. Spanking them with an open hand is not considered sufficient. “The Word of God instructs us to use the rod of correction,” Sister Susan Mutch, an ordained minister of the Church, said. “We use an object to spank with rather than the hand. The hand is to be noted for something else, an instrument of love and affection.”

Followers quote passages of the Bible to defend spanking, such as: “A father who spares the rod hates his son, but one who loves him keeps him in order” (Proverbs XIII, 24).

The Canadian families moved to Ohio and Indiana because those states have more permissive laws on corporal punishment for children than Ontario. Canadian law allows spanking only within the limits of reasonable force, which has been interpreted as prohibiting the use of objects such as sticks or belts. In the United States, the laws on spanking vary significantly from state to state. In Florida, a red welt on a child’s skin from a spanking can result in a parent being imprisoned for five years.

In Ohio, parents have more freedom. Corporal punishment is legal as long as it does not lead to the child requiring hospital treatment or having a permanent disfigurement.

Winning refuge in the United States on the ground of religious persecution would not be easy. The families would have to establish a credible fear of returning to Canada and prove a well founded basis for those fears.

The children who were taken into care in Ontario were returned to their families after two weeks. The parents face a court hearing on September 6.