BANGKOK, June 14 (Xinhuanet) -- Legislation is needed to ban corporal punishment so as to eradicate violence against children, a United Nations conference urged here Tuesday.

    Corporal punishment at home and in school physically and emotionally impacts daily on the lives of many of the 600 million children in the region, said a press release issued by the East Asia and Pacific Regional Consultation Against Violence.

    The three-day meeting, held in Bangkok from Tuesday, will submit its resolutions and recommendations to the United Nations Secretary General's Study on Violence Against Children, the first of its kind.

    Corporal punishment is still widely practiced and culturally accepted as a form of appropriate discipline in most countries in the region, including those that have outlawed it, said experts and children representatives participating in the meeting.

    According to a survey among children in the region, some 23 percent of young respondents say their parents beat them when they do something wrong.

    Experts are afraid that violence against children might take form of corporal punishment without a strict legislation ban.

    "Even if the vast majority of the world disapproves of violence against children, violence remains too common, and yet, too hidden," Professor Paulo Pinheiro, an Independent Expert for the UN Study, said at the meeting.

    "It's present in every country...frequently invisible and cutting across boundaries of culture, class, education, income, ethnic origin and age," he said.

    The meeting, the sixth of nine required consultations for the global UN Study, will also discuss other related issues such as violence against children in working place, in street and in cyberspace.

    UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is expected to present findings of the consultations to the General Assembly in October 2006. Enditem