When will corporal punishment end?

Pinned on the concrete classroom veranda, the four-year-old screamed as he begged for mercy from the man working a wooden stick on his tiny body.
“Have mercy on me. I won’t do it again,” he pleaded. But the endless beating continued until the man, later identified as his father, got tired.
His female teacher watched humbly with a grin that suggested satisfaction on her face. Unbothered, the boy’s fellow pupils watched seemingly less concerned with what was happening around them.

While the video caused uproar in the public, what had just happened was not shocking. In fact, some people in various public and private forums justified the flogging as a “disciplinary measure”. Reacting to the public uproar, the father of the boy was arrested by police and made a teary plea for forgiveness.
The direction of the case, for now, is immaterial but the incident captured on camera represents what happens every day behind the scenes in most of our schools.

The ban
In the late 90s, the ministry of Education took a decision to ban corporal punishment in schools by issuing a policy document abolishing the practice. Later, the practice was banned in all schools and colleges in 2006. Perhaps suggesting the mindset within the education sector leadership, the 2006 decision was taken close to 10 years after the June 10, 1997, circular communicating a temporary ban on the same.
“Banning corporal punishment is timely as Uganda joins the rest of the African countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Swaziland and South Africa in making schools safer, rights-based and child-friendly. Ugandans should not ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ but instead ‘spoil the rod and spare the child,” former Education minister Geraldine Namirembe Bitamazire said at the time, yet it remains a public secret that this happens with some parents, sadly, encouraging it.

Punishment
Corporal punishment generally is any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however, light.
It takes the form of slapping, caning, pinching, being made to kneel while carrying stones in the sun, being forced to jump squats, mop toilets or simply humiliated and other personal insults.

There are also other non-physical forms of punishment which are also cruel and degrading including, punishment which belittles, humiliates, denigrates, scapegoats, threatens, scares or ridicules the child.
The commonest reasons for which children are caned include being late for school, speaking in class without the teacher’s permission, not answering questions correctly or failing to answer them, failing to attain an expected grade, escaping from school and many others.
Anyone who has been to a Ugandan school where corporal punishment is the norm knows the different techniques teachers use to ensure their cane is effective.

Here is what one female student in neighbouring Tanzania told Human Rights Watch report researchers last year: “They use a stick as punishment, in the bottom and back. We have to bend over like this.… During periods it’s worse…. When they beat us using the stick, they keep on hitting, sometimes our cloth [sanitary] pads come out and the bleeding stains our clothes.” Is it any different for school-going girls in Uganda who are flogged at school?

The law
Uganda is signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Article 37 of the CRC requires states to ensure that “no child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Furthermore, the CRC states that disciplinary action in schools should be administered in a manner that respects the child’s human dignity.
Article 24 of the 1995 Constitution protects the dignity and safety of every Ugandan, including children. Article 44 under section (a) makes the provisions under Article 24 non-derogable, meaning there can be no justification for contravening these rights.

The Children Act Cap 59 Section 5 explicitly states that anyone entrusted with the care of a child has a duty to maintain that child and to provide for her or his basic rights. Under section 5 (2) the Act emphasises the responsibility of the same duty-bearers to protect children from discrimination, violence, abuse or neglect.
Other provisions of the law that criminalise corporal punishment include the Penal Code Act Cap 106 Section 221 and Section 81 and 228 and the Education Act 1970 Under Government Standing Orders, chapter 127.

Effects
The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the Education ministry in a handbook on alternatives to corporal punishment list some of the effects of the vice to include lifelong psychological damage such as depression, inhibition, rigidity, heightened anxiety and suicidal thoughts.
Corporal punishment also causes children to lose interest in learning, resent the learning experience and, as a result, do not value education.

It also accounts to school absenteeism and dropout, breeds cruelty and violence, tarnishes the school’s image and costs money to treat injured children. Some children die as a result.
In 2013, this newspaper reported a case where a 13-year-old pupil in Rakai District died after being beaten by a teacher for allegedly stealing Shs3,000. In a related case in the same year, a nine-year-old Primary Three pupil in Iganga District died after allegedly receiving a lash from a classmate under the instruction of the teacher.

Alternatives

Unicef and the Education ministry suggest “positive discipline” as an alternative which includes non-violent consequences for poor behaviour. It uses consequences that replace the experience of humiliation.
Parents, teachers and guardians are urged to considering the effects of one’s behaviour, identifying alternative and preferred behaviours, demonstrating understanding of why a preferred behaviour is important and making amends for harm done to others or the environment.
In this approach, students are required to engage in writing essays, making apologies or performing chores in the classroom—any activities that make them stop, think and demonstrate their intention to act differently in the future.

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