Tackling the Physical Punishment of Children in Resource Poor Contexts: The Utility of a Community Starting Point Approach for Action and Intervention in Children’s Rights Programming

Despite the global wind of change in public attitudes towards the physical punishment of children, partly influenced by the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, the practice remains prevalent in diverse societies. This implies that current efforts are limited as strategies to initiate behaviour change, especially in societies where, the practice is not only condoned, but also where governments lack the capacity, largely as a result of resource scarcity, to enforce legislation. Therefore, this article proposes an alternative approach which foregrounds using the starting point of communities as a more effective strategy to protect children’s rights in such socio-economic contexts. Focusing predominately on sub-Saharan Africa, this paper outlines the rationale for the continuing prevalence of the physical punishment of children before exploring the utility of approaches that take community perspectives as their point of departure for action and intervention and analysing the importance of dialogue to this process.