Staffan Janson, pediatrician and professor of public health in the Swedish city of Karlstad, recently had his findings on violence against children published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet. ‘More and more Swedes felt that all people – children too – should enjoy equal protection from violence’, he says. Research also shows that serious child abuse decreases when countries abolish corporal punishment. Jenny Ingårda, project coordinator at the children’s helpline BRIS (Children’s Rights in Society), says: ‘Without the ban on corporal punishment, parents’ boundaries would be much vaguer and violence more common. Decreasing violence against children is a slow process, but we are moving ahead.’