Where is corporal punishment in schools legal?
How corporal punishment in schools is treated in 49 countries, from sources last checked September 2026. Choose a country for its classification, the source, and how its neighbours compare.
- Banned 41 countries (84%), including China, India, Brazil and Russia.
- Legal 5 countries (10%), including Tanzania, Myanmar, Malaysia and Sierra Leone.
- Varies by region 3 countries (6%): United States, Pakistan and Australia.
Banned 41
- Argentina
- Austria
- Bolivia
- Brazil
- Canada
- China
- Colombia
- Costa Rica
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- India
- Iran
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Japan
- Luxembourg
- Moldova
- Nepal
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Norway
- Philippines
- Poland
- Russia
- Serbia
- South Africa
- South Korea
- Spain
- Sweden
- Taiwan
- Thailand
- Ukraine
- United Arab Emirates
- United Kingdom
- Venezuela
- Vietnam
Legal 5
Varies by region 3
- Australia
- Pakistan
- United States
About this data
Compiled from Wikipedia: School corporal punishment; sources last checked 17 September 2026. The full dataset is available as JSON.
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A visual reference compiled from Wikipedia’s law-by-country articles, not legal advice. Laws change and summaries simplify — check a primary source before relying on anything here.