This briefing highlights the human rights imperative to prohibit all violent punishment of children in all East and Southern African states. It summarises progress so far towards prohibition in each state and what remains to be done. Aiming to promote national action for prohibition, it emphasises the immediate opportunities for working to fulfil children’s right to protection in law from all corporal punishment in the many East and Southern African states where legislation related to children and families is currently being reformed. The adoption of commitments to end all violence against children, including specifically corporal punishment, in Africa’s Agenda for Children 2040 and the global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, provide additional and immediate contexts for focussing attention on fulfilling this most fundamental obligation under human rights law.

The briefing was launched at the 28th Ordinary Session of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and 59th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, in Banjul, The Gambia, in October 2016.

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East and Southern Africa progress briefing 2016