Children's rights must be protected by all citizens

Corporal punishment is an incendiary topic. It tends to provoke an inflammatory burst or violent reaction depending on the side or the perimeter one leans on. Many acclaimed disciplinarians often quote profusely from the Bible and the Hadith to buttress the need for corporal punishment in our schools and at home. Amongst the famous quotations is Proverbs 13:24 King James Version (KJV), which says, “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” Translated in simple English: “He who withholds the rod (of discipline) hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines and trains him diligently and appropriately (with wisdom and love).”

The Prophet of Islam said, “Use love and affection in education and upbringing and don’t have access to cruelty because a wise mentor is better than a cruel one.” Similarly, the Prophet admonished the Muslims to “ask your children to start offering prayers at the age of six years. If they don’t listen to your repeated warnings, you may beat them to become regular at offering prayers when they are seven years old.” Even the beating prescribed by the prophet is spanking on the leg and not aggressive beating with a rod, wire, shoes, horsewhip, plank, and all sorts of substances that parents and guardians sometimes used indiscriminately while seething with anger.

These quotations above are veritable references that support corporal punishment from the religious prism. Howbeit, the averments emphasise moderation on the part of the parent so that they will not become a tyrant and an object of hatred to their kids. In the process of applying corporal punishment, parents should be cautious of unabated fury and not slap the child in the face or inflict injury or permanent scar on them. Myriad research has shown that corporal punishment lionises and hardens the hearts of kids. It predisposes them to lying and false pretences of an accurate lifestyle to escape punishment at home and in school. Physical punishment does not change the child’s misbehaviour or misdemeanour; rather, it changes their personality for the worse. The late Michael Jackson overtly expressed hatred and repugnance for his father for the sole reason of corporal punishment inflicted on him when he was growing up with his siblings.

It’s likely that parents agree that physical punishment is acceptable in the household. A blow or other force, not in any case extending to a wound or grievous harm, may be justified for the purpose of correction in the following ways, according to Article 295 of the Criminal Code (South): (1) A father or mother may correct his or her legitimate or illegitimate child, who is under sixteen years old, for misconduct or disobedience to any lawful command; (2) a master may correct his or her servant or apprentice, who is under sixteen years old, for misconduct or default in his or her duties as such servant or apprentice. Sharia law and the penal code are also in line with and support the claims made in the criminal code. These submissions to the criminal and penal codes have been deemed invalid due to several physical abuses of children committed by parents, guardians, and teachers. To shield children from the physical, sexual, emotional, and neglectful abuses that are common in our daily lives, the Child Rights Act of 2003 was adopted.

Permit me to relate a didactic incident of my childhood experience in junior secondary school. I loved reading the Pacesetter series as a child. Incidentally, I read one impressionable novel by Agbo Areo titled “An Unforgettable Love.” Ignorantly, I wrote a fascinating quotation, “Love is a disease which a doctor cannot cure,” on the board in my class. On getting to class, a Ghanaian teacher, Mr. Mensah, sighted the quotation and summoned me up for a beating. Instead of celebrating my ingenuity as a little child by guiding and correcting me, it was an albatross because I was violently beaten, and this led to an unceremonious visit of my daddy to school the following day. On seeing my dad, the teacher dialogued with his leg and vanished into thin air. This incident led to his final exit from my school as a contract foreign teacher. Apart from parents, all other carers or surrogate parents have abused the legitimate rights of physical punishment consciously or subconsciously. Many teachers in public schools eminently derive solace in the violent beating and spanking of the learners under their care. Some of them pride themselves as demigods who can do an undo, knowing that many otherwise semi-illiterate parents are ignorant of their child’s rights.

In this century, corporal punishment should be outlawed and be inserted in the National Policy on Education manual for every Adebayo, Adamu, and Izuchukwu to behold. Notably, our national policy is mute on corporal punishment in our schools. Even, based on the age-old understanding of corporal punishment, the idea of beating with a cane is the last resort by the school if all other mechanisms put in place have failed to change the learners. The cane lash is not meant to inflict laceration on the learner’s body but rather to be administered by the school principal openly to serve as a warning and deterrent to other learners.

Our schools must be amenable to the 21st-century model of “the right not to be hit,” that is, the children must be protected specifically in school since many teachers have displayed macho-like behaviour of bullying and beating learners to the point of injury, coma, and even death, which had been variously reported recently by the newspapers and social media. Incidentally, my daughter fell victim to something similar here in Canada; a bystander who noticed slight abuse on a child in a daycare reportedly called the child welfare services and gave a fitting description of my 3-year-old daughter, claiming that the girl was inappropriately spanked by the daycare teacher. The case was investigated, and we were pressed by the child welfare services to institute a case against the daycare; we declined because of a lack of enough evidence to do so.

To correct these anomalies, the Federal Ministry of Education and the stakeholders in education should, as a matter of necessity, endeavour to enforce and activate the United Nations Article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires states to take “all appropriate legislative, administrative, social, and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s), or any other person who has the care of the child.” Invariably, a child protection policy manual should be put in place for public schools to guide their conduct; private schools should be enjoined to develop their own using the child’s rights acts as a template. Furthermore, teachers need to be properly educated because the children are not sent to school to be beaten up but rather for proper moulding, nurturing, training, breeding, and fostering into mature and responsible adults. In a nutshell, the swift response of the Nigerian Police Force and the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency is commendable in arresting the teacher who slapped the 3-year-old pupil in a viral video. This is unacceptable; children’s rights must be protected by all citizens, whether as neighbours, relatives, passersby, or bystanders.

Rotimi S. Bello, a public commentator, peace and conflict expert, and HR Advisor writes from Canada