Ending Legalised Violence Against Children - Europe and Central Asia

Summary: Report submitted for the Europe and Central
Asia Regional Consultation for the UN Study
on Violence Against Children.
The report reviews the legal status of violent punishment in each state in
Europe and Central Asia. It found that 16 European countries - more than
a third of the Council of Europe’s 46 member states - now recognise
children’s human right to equal protection and prohibit all corporal
punishment, including in the family. However, the rest have failed to act,
despite recommendations from human rights bodies monitoring conformity
with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Social
Charter. In all countries in Central Asia the law does not protect children
from being hit in the home and many still allow children to be legally
assaulted in schools, the penal system and alternative care settings.
Recommendations in the report, which are endorsed by major human
rights and children’s organisations in the region, include:

+ Explicit prohibition of all violent punishment of children in the family,
schools, the penal system and alternative care settings in order to give
children equal protection with adults;

+ Greater awareness-raising and public education on children’s right to
equal protection and the negative effects of violent punishment;

+ Greater research to show the extent of violent punishment in all settings.
pdf: www.endcorporalpunishment.org/pages/pdfs/Report-EuropeCentralAsia.pdf

Web: 
http://www.crin.org/violence/search/closeup.asp?infoID=5812

Countries

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