Where can information be found about the status of corporal punishment worldwide?  

The U.N.'s human rights website is the most comprehensive. Its reports of the meetings of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, along with the Committee’s observations, are a rich source of information. Other sites, indicated in the bibliography, also provide clips of information from the news.  

[For readers of English, the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children also has an excellent comprehensive site at www.endcorporalpunishment.org.]  

What is the "state of the world" in terms of corporal punishment?  

It is dismaying. On every continent, most often at home as well as in the schools, children are being subjected to a hailstorm of blows or living under threat of such. In most countries, the act of beating a child is allowed, if not recommended or even mandated by parents' religion or customs. Social services generally do not step in, except for (at best) cases where the blows have left clearly visible marks, such as bruises or broken skin, or have killed the child. Taboos with respect to physical punishment, especially when it occurs within the family, are even stricter than those surrounding incest or sexual abuse. Initial reports by nations before the Committee on the Rights of the Child, while they usually discuss incest, often "forget" about corporal punishment.

Proceed to:

Europe, Africa, The Americas, Asia, Oceania

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Proceed/Return to:

FOREWORD/PREFACE/INTRODUCTION

PART ONE
1 – A Brief History of Disciplinary Violence
2 – The Nature of Disciplinary Violence and Opinions on the Matter
3 – Why we must stop using corporal punishment
4 – How can we raise children without hitting?
5 – Why is it necessary to ban disciplinary violence?
6 – What to do?
7 – Question for the author
8 – Questions for the reader

PART TWO
World geography of disciplinary violence by continent and country

APPENDICES
I – Introduction for the EMIDA Family Education Program
II – Why the Church must denounce ordinary disciplinary violence
III – Resistance every advocate of a spanking ban can expect to face
IV – Declaration against "disciplinary" violence

ABOUT THE AUTHOR