Committee on the Rights of the Child issues recommendations on corporal punishment

For its 84th session in March 2020, the Committee on the Rights of the Child travelled to Samoa to hold its first session outside Geneva. The Committee made recommendations on corporal punishment of children to all states examined:

  • To the Cook Islands, the Committee expressed concern that corporal punishment is still legal in some settings, except schools. The Committee urged the state to repeal laws that allow corporal punishment and to explicitly prohibit it, as well as strengthen awareness-raising programmes on positive, non-violent forms of discipline.
  • The Committee issued its first recommendation on the issue to Micronesia, recommending that it explicitly prohibit corporal punishment in law and in all settings. The Committee urged Micronesia to develop training programmes on non-violent forms of discipline for parents and professionals working with children.
  • To Tuvalu, the Committee urged the state to take legislative and policy measures to explicitly prohibit corporal punishment and promote non-violent forms of child-rearing and discipline.


Further information

  • For more information, see our detailed reports for the Cook Islands, Micronesia and Tuvalu.
  • For further information on the obligation to prohibit corporal punishment under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and to see the Committee’s recommendations in full, see the Global Initiative’s page on the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
  • For information on how you can support the campaign to protect all children from corporal punishment, visit our Get involved