The Committee finished its 79^th session in early October 2018 and issued recommendations to prohibit all corporal punishment to all of the states examined:

• To El Salvador, the Committee expressed concern that corporal punishment was still lawfully and culturally justified. It recommended that a law prohibiting corporal punishment in all settings is adopted and that the legal defences are amended to criminalise all corporal punishment without exceptions. It also recommended that El Salvador promote positive parenting.
• The Committee recommended to Lao PDR to ensure all corporal punishment, however light, is explicitly prohibited in all settings in the draft Penal Code. It urged the Government to conduct awareness-raising programmes for parents, professionals and the wider public to promote positive discipline as an alternative to corporal punishment.
• Although Mauritania has misleadingly reported that the Child Protection Code had enacted prohibition of all corporal punishment, the Committee highlighted that corporal punishment was not in fact prohibited in all settings and urged Mauritania to amend legislation to prohibit corporal punishment of children in all settings, including as a sentence for a crime. The Committee also recommended the promotion of positive discipline and that awareness is raised around the harmfulness of corporal punishment.
• To Niger, the Committee recommended that the draft Children’s Code is adopted to harmonise national legislation with the Convention. It also recommended that corporal punishment is explicitly prohibited in legislation in all settings including the home and in Koranic schools, and that campaigns are introduced on public education and awareness-raising.

For further details, see the Global Initiative’s individual country reports for El Salvador, Lao PDR, Mauritania and Niger.

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.