Global Initiative to end All Corporal Punishment of Children -to close?
Corporal punishment is the most common form of violence against children worldwide. It includes any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light, as well as non-physical forms of punishment that are cruel and degrading.
Any corporal punishment violates children’s right to respect for their human dignity and physical integrity, and their rights to health, development, education and freedom from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Its legality in the majority of states – unlike other forms of interpersonal violence – violates their right to equal protection under the law.
The Global Initiative works as a catalyst promoting progress towards universal prohibition and elimination of all corporal punishment of children.
It is with considerable sadness that the trustees of the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children announce that, after a long period of internal deliberations, the decision has been made to close the organisation in September 2020.
Unfortunately the organisation is not closing because it’s work is finished ….this may take decades rather than years…but pressures on a small advocacy organisation to raise operational funds.
Even in schools, which should be sanctuaries of peace and learning, many teachers still believe that ‘sparing the rod spoils the child’. It is a disgrace that decades after the Convention on the Rights of the Child we still have to argue that children do not need to be hit and humiliated to learn well. Neuroscience has proved to us that harsh punishment and learning do not go well together. Lets hope other organisations can take up where the Global Initiative lets go.
