States respond to recommendations to prohibit corporal punishment made at the UPR 21st session
At 29th session of the Human Rights Council, held in May/June 2015, the working group reports of states reviewed in the 21st session of the UPR in January 2015 were adopted and governments responded to the recommendations that were made during their reviews. Eight states received recommendations to prohibit corporal punishment (click on the names of the states for full details):
- Armenia accepted the recommendations to prohibit and confirmed that prohibition is included in draft amendments to the Family Code.
- Grenada rejected recommendations to prohibit stating that this is not possible because local laws permit corporal punishment.
- Guinea-Bissau accepted without comment the recommendation to prohibit.
- Guyana did not clearly accept or reject recommendations to prohibit but commented on public consultation and law reform to date.
- Kiribati accepted recommendations to prohibit all corporal punishment and to repeal the provision allowing “reasonable punishment”.
- Kuwait accepted recommendations to prohibit corporal punishment but noted that the Child Rights Act allows for “simple discipline”, suggesting that the state is not yet fully committed to prohibiting all forms of corporal punishment without exception.
- Kyrgyzstan accepted without comment the recommendation to prohibit.
- Turkey accepted without comment the recommendations to prohibit corporal punishment.
The clear acceptance of recommendations by Guinea-Bissau, Kiribati and Kyrgyzstan mean that these states can now be added to the list of states where governments have made a firm commitment to reforming their laws to prohibit all corporal punishment (Armenia and Turkey are already on the list). This brings the total number of states committed to prohibition to 50.
No recommendations specifically on corporal punishment were made to Guinea, Lao PDR and Lesotho, but general recommendations to bring national law into line with international human rights standards and to protect and promote child rights were made and have been accepted by the respective governments.
Also reviewed were Kenya, Spain and Sweden, all of which have already achieved prohibition of all corporal punishment. In the context of the review, Kenya reported ongoing law reform to being national laws into conformity with the Constitutional prohibition of corporal punishment, and Sweden confirmed its commitment to promote abolition of corporal punishment of children nationally and internationally.