Eight countries have made new pledges to ban corporal punishment, the most common form of violence against children, in a move that campaigners have labelled “a fundamental shift” for more than 100 million under-18s.
The governments of Panama, Kyrgyzstan, Uganda, Burundi, Sri Lanka and the Czech Republic have said they will totally prohibit corporal punishment; while the Gambia and Nigeria have promised to end it in schools.
The pledges were made as part of commitments to tackle violence against children ahead of the first global UN ministerial conference on the subject, to be held 7-8 November in Bogotá, Colombia.
“It’s amazing,” said Bess Herbert, an advocacy specialist at End Corporal Punishment at the World Health Organization. “[These countries] together account for about 150 million children and it is a fundamental shift for [them]. It’s a very strong signal to the rest of the world that this is the direction we are going in and we just don’t accept violence against children any more.”
Corporal punishment includes physical force used to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light, as well as non-physical forms of punishment that are cruel and degrading.
Currently, 67 states out of 193 have full prohibition of corporal punishment; the first country to ban it was Sweden in 1979. In the UK, Scotland and Wales have banned it, but it is still allowed in home settings in England and Northern Ireland.
A growing body of research associates corporal punishment with negative health and behavioural outcomes, including poorer mental health, cognitive development and educational outcomes, increased aggression and antisocial behaviour. It can damage family relationships and, far from teaching children to behave well, teaches them that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflict, say critics.
In some of the worst cases, children are killed. Last month, a boy died in Nigeria after being flogged by his teacher. In England, 10-year-old Sara Sharif was burned with an iron, bitten and had a plastic bag taped over head before she was found dead at her family home in August last year.
Dr Etienne Krug, director of the department for social determinants of health at the WHO, said: “Corporal punishment is something from another time. We want to see it banned in all countries. We know it is not an effective way of disciplining children. It is harmful to their health and to their achievements at school.”
The first UN conference on violence against children will see more than 130 governments, 90 ministers, survivors, practitioners, youth activists, civil society organisations and funders gather in Bogotá.
Other commitments made by governments include a pledge by Solomon Islands to raise the age of marriage from 15 to 18 and one by Fiji to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14.
Jordan will create a national action plan on violence against children for 2025-2030; the Gambia will pass a Children’s Act and Tanzania has pledged to introduce child protection groups in 25,000 schools. Spain is to establish a new law to tackle safety online, and Colombia, Estonia and the Gambia have also made commitments on this issue.
The pledges to end corporal punishment come at a time when one billion young people around the world are victims of cruel acts of violence each year, equating to one in every two children.
Violence can take many forms, including corporal punishment, online bullying and abuse, bullying at school, and sexual abuse by clergy, sports leaders, authorities and family members.
Violence against children has not received enough attention or funds, claim campaigners, survivors and youth activists. Target 16.2 of the UN sustainable development goals aims to eliminate all forms of violence against children by 2030. “We are of course very far from achieving that,” said Krug. “We still see violence happening every day all over the world. Having said that, there is progress, we know what needs to be done … but it’s just not going fast enough.”
Bryanna Mariñas, 22, a youth activist from the Philippines and a member of the first global youth movement to end violence against children, said: “[This conference] has been a long time coming.” Children, youth and survivors of violence had not been given enough opportunities to shape action and policies, she added. “Spaces for children and youth involved in ending violence against children have been tokenistic and are still sorely lacking,” she said. “If we want to change, we have to start with the youth.”
Daniela Ligiero, founder of the Brave Movement, a survivor-centred global movement, said: “It’s about making sure people with lived experience are part of the decision-making and the development and implementation of policies. We’ve seen that the combination of data, science, evidence and research with lived experience is incredibly powerful to ensure that policies are fit for purpose and that they are actually effective when implemented.”
