Childhoods free from corporal punishment – prohibiting and eliminating all violent punishment of children

If states can be convinced to work strategically together, 2030 is now an entirely realistic deadline for achieving universal prohibition of violent punishment of children and its substantial elimination.

In July 2016, United Nations member states come together in New York for the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF): this is the UN’s central platform for follow-up and review of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda with its 17 goals and 169 targets. The focus of this Forum is “ensuring that no one is left behind”, one of the recurring commitments made in the 2030 Agenda.

Children certainly have been – are still being – left behind by the persisting legality and social approval of violent punishment inflicted in their families, schools and other institutions. Children are now the only citizens of many states who can still be criminally assaulted with impunity – if the assault is disguised as “discipline”. The Global Initiative will work with governments and other partners to highlight this issue during the HLPF. The 2030 Agenda, “Transforming our world”, envisages “a world free of fear and violence … a world of universal respect for human rights and human dignity, the rule of law, justice, equality and non-discrimination”. For children this plainly demands an end to the indignity, injustice and inequality inherent in legalised violent punishment.

This report documents in detail the progress and potential for accelerating achievement or commitment to a full ban of violence against children.