According to Oxford Learners Dictionary, Corporal Punishment or physical punishment is a punishment done with the intention to cause physical pain to a person.
It is mostly practised on minors particularly in schools and homes.
Some of the common methods of corporal punishment include spanking, paddling, hitting, kicking, slapping and so on.
According to history, corporal punishment has been used on adults, particularly on prisoners and slaves.
A report by the United Nations International Children Emergency Fund ( UNICEF) states that children should be protected from all forms of physical and mental violence.
It also stated that a little slap carries the message that violence is the appropriate response to a conflict or unacceptable behaviour from a child. Children subjected to corporal punishment are likely to be aggressive to their siblings, bully other children at school, take part in aggressively anti-social behaviour in adolescence, violent to their spouses and are known to commit violent crimes.
In developing countries such as Nigeria, corporal punishment has been there since time immemorial as the acceptable method of instilling discipline in a child.
In an interview with a cross-section of Nigerian parents on corporal punishment, they mostly agreed that it has been the best method known to raised their kids.
The Child Rights Act enacted in 2003 in Nigeria to domesticate the Convention on the rights of the child, although this law was passed at the Federal level, it can only be effective if State assemblies also start it.
As a result, no law has been able to abolish the use of physical harm/pain to correct a child, especially by the parents.
A professor of Sociology at the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education called on parents not to overflog the use of corporal punishment on their children as it would only harden the children and make them develop criminal minds.
The professor also said parents should rather adopt the use of reward or moral instructions as the best way to correct their children.
Currently, about 43 countries in the world have officially banned the use of corporal punishment on children. Some of them are Argentina, Brazil, Austria, Sweden, San Marino, Honduras, Luxembourg, Tunisia, Poland, Spain, Greece, Romania, Ukraine and others.
