Ending corporal punishment: 2021 highlights
We are near to the end of another year, where again we faced big challenges but also made important progress in ending corporal punishment and all violence against children. We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone for all their work, together our efforts mean that the movement to end violent punishment in childhood becomes stronger every year!
A few highlights from 2021:
- The Republic of Korea and Colombia enacted laws prohibiting corporal punishment in all settings of children’s lives, meaning that 23 million more children now have legal protection from violent punishment! There was also progress towards prohibition of corporal punishment in schools in Islamabad Capital Territory, Pakistan and the United States Virgin Islands – further details to come in 2022.
- It was another big year for progress in research on corporal punishment. The Lancet put corporal punishment on the front cover, the World Health Organisation published its first factsheet on corporal punishment and health (soon to be available in more languages) and new studies confirmed that corporal punishment makes children’s behaviour worse, affects children’s brain development and has similar effects to other Adverse Childhood Events. In October we co-hosted a webinar with the World Health Organisation exploring corporal punishment as a public health issue, and published our new research summaries.
- April 30 2021 was the first International Day to #EndCorporalPunishment! As well as a high-level international webinar hosted by the Governments of Japan, France and Tunisia, the day included many national events, articles by organisations including the World Bank, and a Twitter reach of 24 million. And we will do it again in 2022, but this time bigger and better! Put the date in your diary now!
- We also held webinars on implementing prohibition and corporal punishment in early childhood, took part in many others, and we launched five new publications – you can find them all below.
- There has been active campaigning to prohibit and/or eliminate corporal punishment in many parts of the world, including Sri Lanka, Canada, Sierra Leone, Jamaica, France, the USA, Costa Rica, Colombia, Thailand, Philippines, Brazil, Wales, South Africa…and many more! (We will be sharing a survey in the New Year to find out what is happening where you are).
There has been encouraging progress across all areas of work to end violence against children. Find out more in the End Violence Partnership 2021 round up here.
Thank you for everything you do to end corporal punishment of children. We are honoured to work with you towards the realisation of non-violent childhoods for all!
We hope you all have a very restful and peaceful end to the year and look forward to working together with you again in 2022.
Bess Herbert, Advocacy Specialist - Corporal Punishment
Sonia Vohito, Legal Policy Specialist – Corporal Punishment
