A report on the human rights violations perpetrated against approximately 25,000 people – children and adults – detained in Argentina’s psychiatric institutions – documented many beatings and prolonged use of isolation in cells.
(Mental Disability Rights International & Center for Legal and Social Studies, 2007, Ruined Lives: Segregation from Society in Argentina’s Psychiatric Asylums)
Surveys carried out in 2002-2004 examined the attitudes of children and adults in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela towards physical punishment. In Argentina, 293 people were surveyed (201 adults and 89 children). Nearly a third (32.6%) of the children and over half of the adults (52.1%) agreed that children should not be physically punished or that “punishment does not solve anything”, and 27% of children and 15.6% of adults agreed that physical punishment is “very bad” or “makes children violent”. Over half (53.9%) of children and 79.6% of adults thought that physical punishment is never necessary.
(Save the Children Sweden & Instituto de Encuestas y Sondeos de Opinión, 2005, Sistematización de las Encuestas Sobre la Perceptión del Castigo Físico en Seis Países de America Latina, presentation: Managua, 16 May 2005)