The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, in its General Comment No. 8 (2006), defines corporal or physical punishment as “any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light”. According to the Committee, this mostly involves hitting (“smacking”, “slapping”, “spanking”) children with the hand or with an implement (a whip, stick, belt, shoe, wooden spoon, or similar) but it can also involve, for example, kicking, shaking or throwing children, scratching, pinching, biting, pulling hair or boxing ears, forcing children to stay in uncomfortable positions, burning, scalding or forced ingestion (for example, washing children’s mouths out with soap or forcing them to swallow hot spices). Non-physical forms of punishment that are cruel and degrading and thus incompatible with the Convention include, for example, punishment which belittles, humiliates, denigrates, scapegoats, threatens, scares or ridicules the child.
Quick Global Facts
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60 countries have banned all forms of child corporal punishment in all settings.
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More than 100 countries banned school corporal punishment.
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To learn more about the legal status of corporal punishment in countries around the world, go to the
Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children.
Corporal punishment has been prohibited in:
2020 - Japan, Seychelles
2019 - Georgia, South Africa, France, Republic of Kosovo
2018 - Nepal
2017 - Lithuania
2016 - Mongolia, Montenegro, Paraguay,
2014 - Andorra, Estonia, Nicaragua, San Marino, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Malta
2013 - Cabo Verde, Honduras, North Macedonia
2011 - South Sudan
2010 - Albania, Congo, Kenya, Tunisia, Poland
2008 - Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Republic of Moldova, Costa Rica
2007 - Togo, Spain, Venezuela, Uruguay,
Portugal, New Zealand, Netherlands
2006 - Greece
2005 - Hungary
2003 - Iceland
2002 - Turkmenistan
2000 - Germany, Israel, Bulgaria
1999 - Croatia
1998 - Latvia
1997 - Denmark
1994 - Cyprus
1989 - Austria
1987 - Norway
1983 - Finland
1979 - Sweden
Click on the image below to read the 2019 Global Report:
Global Progress
