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France becomes latest country to ban spanking
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According to the new regulation, all parents are banned from "any cruel, degrading or humiliating punishment, including physical violence". (Shutterstock/File)
P
arents in most European countries are formally banned from punishing their children by spanking them. As reported by kompas.com, France became the 52nd country to implement the regulation in late December 2016.
According to the new regulation, all parents are banned from "any cruel, degrading or humiliating punishment, including physical violence". But the ban is said to be under the civil law, which means those who breach it will not be criminally charged.
"This law is a very strong symbolic regulation so that parents understand that all violence act will negatively affect the children," said Dr. Gilles Lazimi who actively campaigning the anti-spanking regulation in France.
(Read also: Teachers learn hard lessons from physical punishment)
Most European countries have already banned parents from disciplining their children through spanking. Some that do not implement this law, according to the Telegraph, are UK, Italy, Switzerland and Czech Republic.
Some recent studies found the dangerous effects of spanking a child. An analytic study that was conducted for 50 years stated that children who often got spanked would instead disobey their parents, be at risk of developing mental issues and tended to show antisocial and assaultive behavior. In other words, this kind of punishment will only make things worse for the parents. (kes)
