Southeast Asia and the Pacific is home to 1.9 billion people, of whom 600 million are children under 18 years. Recent studies show that violence is one of the major problems affecting children in this region.
A survey by UNICEF in 2001, which involved more than 10,000 children in 17 countries and territories, reported that children identified violence, including physical and humiliating punishment, as one of the problems that most affected their well-being and development. Research by Save the Children in 2005, which gathered information from 1,042 adults and 3,322 children in eight countries, found various types of violence were often administered at home, in school, and in institutions under the name of discipline.
The 2005 Regional Consultation for the United Nations Secretary-General’s Global Study on Violence against Children, held in Thailand, highlighted root causes of violence against children in the region. They include economic and social inequality, criminality, exploitation of children, and rising demand for sexual services performed by children. Contributing factors are media trivialisation of violence, exposure to exploitative and degrading images on the Internet, and a lack of understanding and application of children’s rights. Violence against children is allowed to continue through social acceptance, inadequate laws and weak child protection systems, as well as ignorance, abuse of power, gender-discrimination and neglect.
The consultation’s recommendations reflect an urgent need to implement fully the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (UNCRC) in Southeast Asia Pacific countries, so that children are treated with the same respect as adults. Ending violence against children is a human rights issue and a development issue, meaning that ending violence against children is essential for the sustainability of social and economic development and to ensure economic prosperity and poverty reduction.
What is corporal punishment?
The Committee on the Rights of the Child defines “corporal” or “physical” punishment as any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light.
Most involves hitting (smacking, slapping, spanking) children, with the hand or with an implement (whip, stick, belt, shoe, wooden spoon). However, it can also involve kicking, shaking or throwing children, scratching, pinching, biting, pulling hair or boxing ears, forcing children to stay in uncomfortable positions, burning, scalding or forced ingestion (for example, washing children’s mouths out with soap or forcing them to swallow hot spices).
In the view of the Committee, corporal punishment is invariably degrading. In addition, other non-physical forms of punishment are also cruel and degrading and thus incompatible with the Convention. These include punishment which belittles, humiliates, denigrates, scapegoats, threatens, scares or ridicules a child.