Read this in Arabic. Published online 24 October A new study finds that teenagers fight less frequently in countries where corporal punishment is fully banned in homes and schools.
These findings come from one of the largest international analyses of youth violence to date, including surveys of more than , adolescents in 88 countries. In countries where neither teachers nor parents are allowed to hit their children, frequent fighting defined as four or more physical fights per year was reduced by 31 per cent in boys and 42 per cent in girls, compared with countries with no bans.
Countries with partial bans at school but not at home showed reduced violence among girls, but no significant improvement among boys. Interestingly, Cambodia, Myanmar and Malawi had the lowest prevalence of frequent fighters in young men, revealing that national wealth is not a determining factor.
The results also showed that Arab countries tend to have high levels of youth violence, especially in boys. Even in Tunisia, the only Arab country with a full ban, 30 per cent of male teenagers experienced frequent fighting. Among the countries involved in the study, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen forbid corporal punishment in schools, while Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, the Palestinian territories, and Qatar have no bans in place.
According to a separate international study conducted by UNICEF, Yemen and Egypt registered the highest rates of harsh physical punishment of children aged 2 to 14 years. However, enforcing such laws is not the only way to control youth violence. Hashem Al-Hassan, professor of early childhood, special education and applied behaviour analysis at the Hashemite University in Jordan.
