We Must Stop Hitting Children! Part 3 Countries Who Stopped

Increasingly, countries around the world are prohibiting physical punishment of children. As of January 2009, 24 countries have passed laws to ban physical punishment:

Sweden (1979),
Finland (1983),
Norway (1987),
Austria (1989),
Croatia(1994),
Cyprus (1994),
Denmark (1997),
Latvia (1998),
Bulgaria (2000),
Germany (2000),
Israel (2000),
Iceland (2003),
Romania (2004),
Ukraine (2004),
Hungary (2005),
Greece (2006),
Chile (2007),
the Netherlands, (2007),
New Zealand (2007),
Portugal (2007),
Uruguay (2007),
Spain (2007),
Venezuela (2007), and
Costa Rica (2008).

These laws are not aimed at prosecuting parents, but at setting a clear standard of caregiving. Their primary purpose is to protect children by sending an unambiguous message that hitting them is wrong and not allowed.

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