Source: Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment for Children
Editor's note: In our Comparisons series, we examine statistics or world rankings to show how different countries and territories stack up with one another.
(CNN) -- Thirty-one nations fully ban corporal punishment.
Sweden, in 1979, was the first to make it illegal to strike a child as a form of discipline. Since then, many other countries in Europe have also instituted bans, as have New Zealand and some countries in Africa and the Americas.
More than 70 additional nations have specific laws in place that prohibit corporal punishment in schools. You can sort through the table above to see where different countries stand on the issue.
In some cases, such as the United States, there are partial bans in place depending on either location or the age of the children.
For the U.S., corporal punishment is prohibited in public schools for 31 states and the District of Columbia. Two states, Iowa and New Jersey, extend their bans to private schools as well.
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