The European Committee of Social Rights has ruled that Ireland, Slovenia, Belgium and the Czech Republic are in violation of the European Social Charter due to a lack of prohibition of all corporal punishment of children. Corporal punishment of children is lawful in the family home in all four states. In Ireland, it is also […]
Nineteen of the 28 European Union member states have enacted legislation prohibiting corporal punishment of children in all settings, including the home. More than half the EU child population is now fully legally protected from all corporal punishment, whoever the perpetrator – compared with the global figure of just one child in ten. But there […]
The report of an independent evaluation of the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children is available here. The evaluation was funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), supported by the Oak Foundation. The evaluation was carried out, and the report written, by Carol Bower, an independent children’s rights consultant based in […]
More than 25 years since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and nearly a decade since the recommendation of the UN Study on Violence against Children to urgently prohibit all corporal punishment, a staggering number of laws are still in force authorising violent punishment of children in schools and setting […]
Latin America is making remarkable progress towards prohibiting all corporal punishment of children. Eight of the 19 Latin American states have now enacted legislation which protects children from corporal punishment in all settings, including the home; prohibition is actively under discussion in others. And while globally just 9% of children are fully protected in law […]
Faith-based support is an integral part of the global movement for prohibition of corporal punishment of children. Universal and religious values of compassion, justice, equality and non-violence transcend theological and denominational differences and form a basis for multi-religious cooperation towards eliminating violence against children. Growing numbers of religious communities and organisations regard ending legalised violence […]
A great deal of legislative reform has been undertaken, and continues to be carried out, in the Pacific Islands. This new briefing from the Global Initiative and UNICEF highlights the immediate human rights obligations to prohibit all violent punishment of children in the 16 member states of the Pacific Islands Forum. It charts the progress […]
The Churches’ Network for Non-violence and the Global Initiative are delighted to announce the long anticipated publication of the new handbook, Ending corporal punishment of children – a handbook for worship and gatherings. This substantial new resource offers a variety of tools to support a faith-based approach to the prohibition of corporal punishment and the fostering […]
Two more states – Andorra and Benin – have achieved full prohibition of corporal punishment of children since the last Global Initiative newsletter in December 2014, bringing the total number of states to 46 (seven in Africa, 28 in Europe). In this newsletter, the Global Initiative reports on these developments and more, including a European […]
France is in violation of the Revised European Social Charter due to its lack of prohibition of all corporal punishment of children, the European Committee on Social Rights has ruled. In a decision released on 4 March 2015, the Committee noted that there is no express and comprehensive prohibition on all forms of corporal punishment […]