A/HRC/41/12/Add.1 any particular problems in the country. Nonetheless, the authorities decided to examine the question. 19. In general, families, and especially Qur’anic teachers, consider such punishment to be essential and beneficial in raising children. In the past, this violence could take extremely traumatic forms. Today, however, many families no longer accept the excesses that they themselves endured in Qur’anic schools. 20. In addition, research in educational psychology has shown the harmful effects of corporal punishment on children’s psychosocial development. 21. The authorities of the Comoros accept this. However, before legislating on the issue, they consider it necessary to begin with a mass education campaign to raise awareness in stakeholders and help them understand the need to ban the corporal punishment of children. 22. Pending the results of these awareness-raising measures, the Government notes recommendations 119.9, 119.10, 119.11 and 119. 13, made by Chile, Croatia, Namibia and Uruguay. 23. Recommendation 119.12 seeks to enforce labour laws and implement programmes to eliminate trafficking in persons, including forced child labour. 24. The delegation of the Comoros was surprised by the focus placed on this issue, given that in the country itself there is no sign of this concern either in practice or in public opinion or on the part of human rights organizations. 25. However, the delegation had reported some, fortunately isolated, phenomena that do still occur in the country and that are doubtless the cause of these responses. These include children being placed in foster families who are known to the children’s parents and who sometimes exploit the children in their care. 26. Children can also still be seen selling confectionery and peanuts on city streets. These children, who continue to attend school, work for their parents and thus contribute to reducing the burden on families living in very precarious conditions. In rural areas, children help with farm work, for the same reasons. 27. The Government is not aware of any children employed outside the family setting, and certainly not of children being forced to work. 28. The Government ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child to ensure this does not happen. 29. In 2015, the Government enacted a law against trafficking in persons. 30. The Government considers that it is by combating severe poverty that these practices can finally be ended, and is deeply committed to this approach, which has shown encouraging results. 31. In this regard, the Comoros has initiated the process to ratify the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. The draft text has already passed the committee stage in the Assembly of the Union and will soon be submitted to a vote by the Assembly members. 32. Furthermore, the new Criminal Code of the Comoros, already adopted by the Assembly members and awaiting enactment, has an entire chapter dedicated to the issue, Chapter XVI, entitled “Offences related to transnational organized crime, including trafficking in persons”. 33. The penalties stipulated in the new Code are harsher than those in the current Code. 34. The new Criminal Code is compatible with the applicable international legal instruments. 35. A working group on the issue of trafficking in persons has also been established (Order No. 16-011/MIREX/CAB, amending certain provisions of order No. 13026/MIREX/CAB of 21 August 2013 on the establishment of a working group on the letter of commitment on combating trafficking in persons). GE.19-10327 3