ST LUCIA

A UNICEF study of child vulnerability in Barbados, St Vincent and St Lucia, completed in November 2006, found that younger girls and boys were much more likely to be punished than their teenage siblings in all three countries. The number of small children who received no punishment was below 50% in all countries. Overall, younger children, both girls and boys, were more likely to be subjected to corporal punishment, such as spanking, slapping or hitting with the hand or an object.

(Reported in The Barbados Advocate, 23 May 2007)

A UNICEF study on Child Rights in Saint Lucia (2000) found that the method of discipline of children most favoured by respondents was corporal punishment (59%), marginally greater among lower socio-economic respondents and males.

(Cited in initial state party report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2004, CRC/C/28/Add.23, para.98)