Law Prohibiting Corporal Punishment of Children

This short law prohibits the corporal punishment of children in Haiti. Its preamble sets out the reasoning: constitutional articles 88, 94, 97, 261 and 262; the decree of the National Assembly of 23 December 1994 sanctioning the Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 November 1989; the decree of 28 September 1990; and two considerations - that there exist natural rights which every human being must enjoy without any discrimination, and that in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the fundamental Charter the State must ensure the protection of the child and the child's social progress by establishing better and more harmonious social conditions. The law is relevant well beyond schools and households: corporal punishment is one of the practices reported in the domestic servitude of children in Haiti, and this statute is the domestic legal reference for that discussion. Published in Le Moniteur, No. 80, Monday 1 October 2001.