SOUTHERN AFRICAN NETWORK TO END CORPORAL AND HUMILIATING PUNISHMENT OF CHILDREN

Whereas most adults acknowledge and respect that children have the right to life, to an adequate standard of living, to health and to education, most find it difficult to accept that children also have the right to protection from any form of violence just as adults have that full protection. Sadly violence against children is accepted globally as evidenced by the UN Study on Violence against Children of 2006. Soon after the report was publicised the UN General Assembly, at its sixty-second session, urged its member countries, which includes Zambia, to prohibit corporal and other cruel forms of punishment of children by law and adopted resolution 62/141 requesting the Secretary-General to appoint, for a period of three years, a Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Marta Santos Pais of Portugal as his Special Representative on Violence against Children at the level of Assistant Secretary-General.

The Study and the appointment of a Special Representative on Violence against Children galvanized children’s rights defenders to work together to lobby governments to prohibit by law corporal and other cruel humiliating forms of treatment or punishment and to promote positive disciplining of children. In Southern Africa civil society organizations from Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique came together in February 2006 at the offices of RAPCAN Offices in Cape Town to chart a way in which they were going to collaborate and share best practices in advocating for a sensitive cause such as the prohibition of corporal punishment of children and how to support parents and other adults in children’s lives to use positive discipline methods. ZCEA was represented at that first meeting and has remained a key member of the now called Southern African Network to end Corporal and Humiliating Punishment of Children.

In 2009, ZCEA took part in the Network’s annual meeting held in Pretoria. Thanks again to the support by Save the Children Sweden, Southern Africa regional office. The meeting spent time discussing country updates including identifying regional and inter-country support for national campaigns and efforts, focussing on law reform, institutional reform and broad based social reform on violence against children. Apart from the country reports other issues were discussed such as the launch of the write-up of lessons learnt in South African Advocacy for prohibiting corporal punishment process, an update on the Southern Africa materials on parenting project, the launch of the Network’s website and report backs on both the Global Workshop on ending corporal punishment and the submission to the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child that both took place in 2008 in Bangkok Thailand and Addis Ababa Ethiopia respectively. ZCEA was represented at both events. http://www.rapcan.org.za