By Red Thread, Guyana
A recent regional hearing on corporal punishment and its impact on the rights of children in the Caribbean was organized by the Inter American Commission on Human Rights. Speakers included Blossom Inc.; ChildLink Inc.; Jamaicans for Justice; Red Thread; Simon Springett, the UN Resident Coordinator Barbados & Eastern Caribbean; Ms. Najat Maalla, United Nations Special Representative on Violence against Children. Guyana’s participation was coordinated by Danuta Radzik and Vidyaratha Kissoon. In this week’s diaspora column, we share Red Thread’s submission.
Violence against children is unacceptable, yet corporal punishment, in the name of correction and discipline, is allowed in the schools.
Corporal punishment is the infliction of physical pain such as beating, bracing, mutilation, blinding. For us in Guyana, it shows up in such acts as placing children to kneel on graters, flogging for the public (fellow students, parents, passerby) to witness, peppering vaginas, beating to burst skin, and beating with a whip from tree branch or a tool from household items such as pot spoons, wooden mortar-sticks, pot covers, extension cords, curtain rods, and the list can go on. At the end of these disciplining strategies of corporal punishment, there are intended and unintended negative impacts left on that child, on our children. These show up as mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, inability to process conflict or difference in opinions, insecure attachments, poor relationship and distrust of adults (whether parental or not), bullying in schools and more.
As members of Red Thread, we advocate against violence against children and do not support corporal punishment – the term used to institutionalise violence against children. Violence is an intentional inflicted harm for a desired outcome for the person using it, but what about the recipient of that violence? What do we know about the impact on them? On our children who we are depending on to carry this nation forward, to construct or devise problem-solving strategies? How does violence reduce a child’s ability to be non-violent, creative and innovative? How does corporal punishment reproduce individuals who only know how to utilize violence or inflict harm to get what they want?
We are not going to pretend that we are innocent of beating children. Most of us are guilty of this, but we have come to acknowledge and accept that this behaviour is about stamping authority and nothing more. All of us can also attest to the fact that we did not like being beaten as children. Beating is not a corrective method; it drives fear into a child and sometimes causes the child to be dishonest ((rather than risk being beaten if telling the truth leads to punishment).
Corporal punishment teaches a child to become violent, , as this recollection from one of the Red Thread members illustrates:
“As a child, I remember being beaten by my grade 6 class teacher because I spelt one word wrong. Four lashes in my hand with a locally made ruler resulted in my hand being swollen and painful. I still had to endure the pain to complete my work that day, for fear that I would be beaten again. I went home showed my brother and cousins my hand and told them who did that to me. Later that afternoon, we lay in wait for the teacher in a clump of bushes with some bricks in our hands and as she passed, we pelted her. The place was hilly so she fell and rolled down the hill, causing her to incur injuries. She was absent from school for three days and I was at peace. Today I am not proud of my reaction but it felt right at the time.”
Today, we see a lot of violence among teachers and students and in some cases, parents get involved. While most parents give the teachers consent to beat their children, some don’t agree with the manner in which they are being beaten. A grade 1 student was unable to write for over three months because he was beaten by his teacher for not doing his work. Upon enquiry, it turned out that the child simply didn’t understand the assignment. Many of these matters never reach the Ministry of Education or the police because headteachers often sweep the issue under the carpet, including threatening the parent that the child will be put out of the school.
Children are beaten for not doing homework, for arriving at school late, for hitting another child, for not understanding the work/ instructions, for getting an answer wrong, for being rude, and the list can go on and on; but who is taking the time to find out what is really happening to the child?
We know of cases in which teachers neglect children in class with the excuse that they are rude and disruptive and since the teacher is not allowed to beat, they pay the children no mind. In the absence of beating, some teachers would implement other forms of punishment like having the child stand at the back of the class or even in the sun for the entire subject period. Some even refuse giving the child a bathroom break, all in the name of disciplinary action. Apart from beating, some teachers say mean and horrible things to students, including things about their family members. How do we expect children to act in the face of this treatment? We know of children cutting classes because they fear the teacher.
We agree that there are some difficult children, but have we really stopped to take the time to examine why that is so? Children were not born as difficult beings, they are influenced by their environment: home, community, school, religion, social media and yes, they need to be given boundaries so that they can soar, but beating cannot be the solution or the shortcut to a problem. Beating a child in the name of correcting them is a way of abusing power. It’s not doing our children any good but rather more harm.
As adults, we step out of line from time to time. Do we want to be beaten for our shortcomings? Do teachers want to be beaten when they fail to perform their duties efficiently? Why should physical violence ever be acceptable?
The time is long overdue when we cannot accept the complaint by teachers that the only way to maintain order or control is to beat. It is time parents stop giving teachers permission to beat their children with the claim that they themselves were beaten and it didn’t kill them. More importantly, it is time society abolishes corporal punishment as our disciplining strategy and stops justifying it as something we have always done (this is the Guyanese or Caribbean way), and do the work of finding meaningful and long term strategies instilling respect, care and discipline among students, ways in which we relate to each others that do not involve an unending cycle of violence. We are tired hearing the saying “if I didn’t get the beating then, I wouldn’t be the person I am today”. This is all an excuse for not being willing to learn other useful and effective ways of discipline. It is time we move away from the, dare we say, purposeful misinterpretation of the Bible that relies on the scripture Proverbs 13: 24 which says “ Those who spare the rod hate their children but those who love them are diligent to discipline them.”
It is our hope that the information shared at this hearing will be able to influence educators/policy makers in the Caribbean that the rod of correction was never a cane or whip. Those belonged to the plantation and they should find no place in our society. Otherwise we have simply internalized the violence that tried to teach us to know our place. There are numerous other most effective and safe ways to apply discipline. Now is the time to explore those ways. Let’s not forget violence begets violence, and resorting to corporal punishment continues to violate the Rights of Children. Doing right by them, means we are guaranteeing a different future with less violence.
