CRC/C/ALB/CO/2-4 (b) Ensure that all children deprived of liberty, including children placed in institutions, have access to a complaints mechanism, where they can file a complaint related to their deprivation of liberty, conditions of detention/internment and treatment; (c) Ensure that child victims of ill-treatment are provided with care and rehabilitation programmes; and (d) Provide specific guidance and supervision to police, security forces and prison guards on the care and protection of children under their responsibility. Corporal punishment 41. While welcoming that corporal punishment is explicitly prohibited in all settings, the Committee is concerned that various forms of corporal punishment are widely practiced at home, in schools and in institutions. Furthermore, the Committee, while noting that the Law on Pre-University Education prohibits corporal punishment, regrets that it does not specify the necessary legal mechanisms for prevention of violence and protection of children in the school premises, nor does it provide for sanctions against teachers who use violence, or for procedures to identify and report violence. 42. In the light of its general comment No. 8 (CRC/C/GC/8, 2006), the Committee urges the State party to: (a) Ensure that laws prohibiting corporal punishment are effectively implemented and that legal proceedings are systematically initiated against persons subjecting children to corporal punishment; (b) Improve the law on Pre-University Education, especially by introducing legal mechanisms for prevention of violence and protection of children in the school premises, sanctions against teachers who use violence and procedures to identify and report violence; (c) Introduce continuous public education, awareness-raising and social mobilization programmes, involving children and their families, community leaders and the media in the process, on harmful physical and psychological effects of corporal punishment, with a view to changing the general attitude towards this practice; and (d) Promote positive non-violent and participatory forms of child-rearing, and alternative forms of discipline and education. Abuse and neglect 43. The Committee expresses its deepest concern that, in spite of the adoption of Law No. 9669 of 2006 on Measures Against Domestic Violence, the National Strategy on Gender Equality and Domestic Violence (2007–2010) and the recently adopted Strategy of Gender Equality and Reduction of Gender-based Violence and Domestic Violence 2011– 2015, domestic violence has still not been explicitly prohibited by law and continues to be widely accepted and practiced as part of normal life. The Committee is particularly concerned that: (a) Half of children are routinely subjected to violence in the home or witness violence against their mothers. In 2008, 18 children reportedly committed suicide as a result of the violence to which they were subjected in the home; (b) Violence-related provisions of the Penal Code do not appropriately define and protect children from violence, especially psychological and emotional violence and articles 9

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