Child Physical Punishment and Associated Factors in Ethiopia

Parental use of physical punishment has been found worldwide regardless of culture, language, religion, or race . According to Straus "physical punishment has been a part of human society for thousands of years." The majority of parents across the world use at least one type of physical punishment on their children at some point . Therefore, many countries, many parents use physical punishment as a means to discipline their children. Actually, within various countries, children are viewed as the property of their parents who have full authority over them, a situation that is supported by the law. The use of parental child physical punishment is a type of maltreatment, which includes beating a child with an object, and exposing to severe physical abuse. It is one of the major public health problems challenging the community particularly in developing countries. However, there is scarce of research on this problem hence this study was incepted.