Gitanas Nausėda: light violence will not save Lithuanian families

He states that rather than scrambling to give permission to punish children with light physical punishments, families need protection from public servants blindly enacting the law.

“The story of children’s rights protection legislation tells me more about the majority’s mistakes in passing and implementing the law than prevalent habits of bringing up children. After the case in Kėdainiai, which shocked us all last year, there has been a push to protect Lithuanian children from violence, but we have been brought to a point, where families are left afraid of losing their children, while lawmakers rush to amend the situation by dividing violence against children as lawful and illegal all the while the public is demanding something else during protests,” G. Nausėda emphasised that the current children’s rights protection law is satisfactory, but poorly implemented with neither the public or civil servants being sufficiently prepared for it, antagonising both sides.

Instead, the presidential candidate urges to ensure that involved civil servants and social workers would be trained to be qualified and capable advisors, who could help families resolve problems, rather than being representatives of penal squads. He emphasises that the taking of a child is a traumatic experience, making it a measure, which should only be used in critical cases if no other measures have yielded results.

Delfi reminds that based on the newest Vilmorus survey released on the Lietuvos Rytas newspaper, Gitanas Nausėda remains the most popular presidential candidate (24.6% of respondents). As before, second place is occupied by Conservative representative Ingrida Šimonytė (19.7%). Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis, who has so far no declared his candidacy remains in third with support from 13.2% of respondents supporting him.