Ending corporal punishment of children in South Africa

Recommendations to end corporal punishment of children in South Africa

By: Soneson U & Smith C (ed)
Produced by: Save the Children (Sweden) , 2005

This publication aims to provide information about corporal punishment and other forms of humiliating and degrading punishment of children in South Africa. It outlines international obligations to prohibit the corporal punishment of children and to engage in public education.
In South Africa, interpersonal violence is widespread and conflicts are in many instances resolved by violent means. However, South Africa has taken significant measures to implement its obligations under international law to ensure that South African children can live a life free from corporal punishment.

The Constitution arguably protects children from all forms of corporal punishment and other forms of humiliating and degrading punishment by ensuring children’s rights to bodily integrity, protection from violence and abuse and everyone’s equality before the law. Corporal punishment of children in public life, i.e. as a sentence by the court, in prisons, in child care institutions and at school, has also been abolished. Despite this, however, parents are still allowed to impose corporal punishment on their children as a method of child-rearing, and 57% of parents in South Africa are still using it when disciplining their children.