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Summary: The International Save the Children Alliance presents its global submission to the UN Study on Violence Against Children at a side event on corporal punishment at the 60th Session of the UN General Assembly, and calls on governments to ban legalised violence against children.
[NEW YORK, 17 October 2005] - In a report launched today, The International Save the Children Alliance calls for a global ban on physical and humiliating punishment of children. The report is one of Save the Children's global submissions to the Secretary-General's UN Study on Violence Against Children. Save the Children believes that physical and humiliating punishment is a form of violence against children and a violation of their right to physical integrity and dignity. In many countries, it remains the one form of assault against a human being that is condoned by law. So far, only 15 states have granted children the protection by law from all corporal punishment, including in the family.* To download the report, go here. --------- END ------------
Mali Nilsson, Chair of the International Save the Children Alliance Task Group on Physical and Humiliating Punishment says: "Save the Children has made it a high priority to engage with the UN Study, as we believe that it is an opportunity for bringing about change in the lives of boys and girls."
Save the Children is among the first international NGOs to take up this challenge, seeking to accelerate the process with a variety of programmes at regional and national levels.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child, other UN human rights treaty bodies, regional human rights mechanisms and high level courts in many states have highlighted that it is every state's obligation to disown physical punishment and thus move on through legal reform and other measures to give equal and long-overdue respect to children's human dignity and physical integrity.
This report, "Ending Physical and Humiliating Punishment of children - Making it Happen", draws on prevalence and work in progress in all the regions, including research into children's own views and experiences, situation analyses on the laws allowing physical and humiliating punishment, advocacy of law reform and public and parent education.
The report finds that physical and humiliating punishments transmit educational messages which can be harmful to the development of the child. These educational messages are that love and authority are linked with violence. Although the physical consequences are more immediate and obvious, it is the longer-term psycho-social aspects which give rise to most concern. No matter what their age, children's developing minds are damaged by violent treatment.
Save the Children therefore believes the UN Study is a unique opportunity to challenge and change attitudes which have allowed the legality and social approval of hitting and deliberately humiliating children to persist across the globe. It proposes that the Study:
· Recommends that states should with urgency explicitly prohibit all violence against children, including all physical punishment in the home and in all settings, as physical and humiliating punishment is a serious breach of children’s fundamental human rights;
· Law reform should be combined with awareness-raising on children's rights to protection and promotion of positive forms of discipline, working with parents, teachers and other carers;
· Research is needed to make children’s experiences of this violence visible and to fuel campaigns to eliminate it;
· The Study needs to demonstrate the importance of involving children in the development of effective and appropriate actions to end all forms of physical punishment and deliberate humiliation.
"If I wanted to discipline an adult, would I have the right to hit them? Of course not! So why should anyone have the right to hit children?" says Mali Nilsson.
For further information,
http://www.rb.se/eng/Programme/Exploitationandabuse/Corporalpunishment/1...
Background information/Notes to Editors:
* Physical punishment includes hitting a child with the hand or with an object, kicking, shaking, or throwing a child, pinching or pulling their hair, forcing a child to stay in an uncomfortable or undignified position, or to take excessive physical exercise; burning or scarring a child. Humiliating punishment takes various forms such as verbal abuse, ridicule, isolation, or ignoring a child.
* This submission includes reports summarising region-by-region recent work by Save the Children and its partners in many countries, and is supported by a remarkable volume of reports and materials. There are many aspects to this work - advocacy for law reform, research into children's experiences of physical punishment and other forms of humiliation,
prevalence research with children, parents and others, innovative awareness-raising and training programmes for parents and teachers. All of these activities have been informed by a commitment to children's meaningful
participation. Many of the submissions include recommendations for regional and national action.
* Law reform to end corporal punishment involves removing any provisions authorising corporal punishment and removing any special defences that may exist, so that the criminal law on assault applies equally to any assault of a child, whether or not it is described as discipline. It is a fundamental principle of human rights - upheld in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 7 and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 26 - that all are entitled to equal protection of the law without discrimination (Global Initiative to End All Corporal
Punishment of Children).
* The International Save the Children Alliance commits itself to supporting the work of the Independent Expert through the Study process and its follow-up, to ensure a real and hugely significant advance with and for children.
* The conclusions drawn from this global report can not be seen as definitive. Nevertheless, the data does offer evidence to support some of the key assumptions on which Save the Children bases its work for the protection and promotion on children's rights and, in particular, for the
eradication of physical and humiliating punishment as a form of socially and legally accepted form of violence.
* *Global Initiative to End all Corporal Punishment of Children, visit: http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org