This webinar, hosted by End Corporal Punishment and CBSS Children at Risk, brings the opportunity to hear from impactful campaigners from around the world, learning how they use effective strategies to achieve law reform and changing norms and behaviour when it comes to corporal punishment of children.
Missed the webinar? Re-watch it here:
Context
Corporal punishment is the most common and widely accepted form of violence against children, with vast numbers regularly experiencing it in multiple settings of their lives. Worldwide around 4 in 5 of all children aged 1-14 years are subjected to violent punishment in their home every year. Over fifty years of research has found strong evidence connecting corporal punishment with multiple short- and long-term harmful impacts for the child and society, including substantial economic costs.
Globally, only 14% of children are fully protected by law from corporal punishment. The widespread social acceptance of corporal punishment helps to normalise violence against children. As the smallest and most vulnerable members of society, children deserve more, not less, protection from assault.
However, progress is accelerating! Today 67 States have prohibited all corporal punishment of children, and the practice is banned in schools in 136 States. And there is growing evidence that when law reform is well implemented it is followed by an ongoing reduction in the acceptance and use of corporal punishment and other forms of violence across society, as well as other positive impacts.
Campaigns to #EndCorporalPunishment have played a critical role in achieving law reform to ban corporal punishment, and in raising awareness and reducing the use and acceptance of violent
punishment of children.