Here in the Nordic-Baltic region there has been a great push towards positive parenting. An area we at the Council of the Baltic Sea States have been working to promote.
Our latest efforts come in the form of a number of comic strips about positive parenting and the harmful psychological and physiological effects of corporal punishment.
To reach a global audience and support ongoing efforts to make non-violent childhoods a reality, the full graphic novel has now been released and translated into most of our programme partners and Member States’ languages; Estonian, Finnish, German, Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish and 5 of the official languages of the United Nations (Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish).
Today, the Baltic Sea Region is a model region at a global level: of 11 member states in the Council of the Baltic Sea States, 10 have a full legal prohibition of corporal punishment in place. The awareness campaign to share the Baltic Sea States’ example beyond the region was first announced at a high-level conference hosted by the CBSS, attended by HRH Prince Daniel of Sweden and President of Malta in November 2018. Translations of 6 guidance reports on building corporal punishment free societies will also follow. While the reports are based on the experience of the Baltic Sea Region, they convey key messages and highlight best practices that have relevance to Europe and beyond, where child rights are taking centre stage.
Corporal punishment is the most common form of violence against children and the graphic novel aims to raise awareness of the relationship between corporal punishment and aggression, depression, impaired parent-child relations and even changes in the structure and functioning of the brain. The novel was based on the latest research on the harmful impact of corporal punishment and written by child rights expert, Head of the Children at Risk Unit at the Council of the Baltic Sea States Turid Heiberg in collaboration with a team of leading researchers and psychologists in the field (Willy-Tore Mørch, Elizabeth Jareg, Åsa Landberg).
The Non-Violent Childhoods programme was developed to promote full implementation of the ban on corporal punishment of children in the Baltic Sea Region. Its programme of work is managed by the Council of the Baltic Sea States Secretariat with co-funding from the European Commission.
The Comic Book can be found here.
The Guidance Reports can be found here.