Corporal punishment has been a sensitive issue in the fight for human rights of children. Since it is a widely accepted practice, the issue of eliminating all its forms has either been downplayed or removed outright from the agenda of human rights protection. The issue of corporal punishment inflicted on children by their parents (or those standing in the place of the parent) has not received as much attention compared to corporal punishment in schools and judicial corporal punishment. This study seeks to re-examine current social and legal policies that allow corporal punishment of children in the homes, with a particular focus on the Philippines. The study argues that any form of hitting causes harm to the child, even if it does not rise to the level of child abuse as traditionally conceived and that corporal punishment breaches fundamental rights to respect for human dignity and physical integrity.
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