All I know is this:
I live in the US and spanking/smacking still occurs regularly in the hall.
Funny thing is, I have never spanked or been physical with my 3 kids and they're the best behaved in the hall. I don't ever yell or raise my voice with them either. I was severely abused as a child in every way and I am not about to keep that cycle going. Just goes to show that you don't need to be harsh to get compliance. Explain, praise and reward is my method.
Sick thing is, the parents, especially with position in the congregation, expect perfect behavior of little children during extremely boring meetings. Then lose their minds when their kids act out a little.
When my kids were little, they got to draw, sit on my lap or sleep at the meeting and then got candy/ice cream afterward. If they got too fidgety, I'd take them for a walk outside, let them get out some of that energy. Parents run into problems because they don't let anything slide and expect behavior that isn't age appropriate. This whole problem would be solved if the JWs would just have age-appropriate classes for the kids instead of making them sit through the adult meetings. When I was growing up, I went to Sunday school and it was great. But I digress.
Anyway, I just stopped going to meetings recently. When I was going, there was an elder that would beat his little 2 and 3 year old daughters for acting up/fidgeting at the meetings, just for doing normal kid stuff. And a single sister that was real bad about this too with her 3 year old. Like seriously, you could hear the sound of the smacking reverberating through the hall, that's how hard they were hitting these kids.
Anyway, I complained multiple times to a couple of other elders because I was worried about these kids, but nothing was ever done. I should have done more, but I didn't want to make waves in the congregation. Never again. If I ever witness a kid being abused like that again, I will make sure that I do everything I can to advocate for that innocent child.