Stop the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of children

Sir Frank Peters: Where there are loaded guns, there are risks of people being shot, hurt, maimed or killed – accidentally or intentionally.
 
Similarly, where there’s corporal punishment (in schools, madrassas or homes) there is the ever-present possibility of a child being, hurt, maimed, disfigured for life, or killed – accidentally or intentionally.
 
Take young Iyanuoluwa Dahunsi as an example. Iyanuoluwa was a pretty young school pupil of the Bishop Philip Academy, Ibadan. Allegedly the secretary of the school principal slapped her in the face. Disgraceful, hurtful, and humiliating enough, but that was only the beginning of her ‘real’ problems.
 
That same day Iyanuoluwa developed an eye problem. Over time she visited different hospitals for treatment and medication, but the affected eyeball continued to bulge out daily causing her severe pain and discomfort and making the lovely angelic face she once had look grotesque. Barely six months later, and five days after her fifteenth birthday, she died as a result of the infection.
 
I would imagine Mrs. Funke Fashina, the person accused of striking Iyanuoluwa, never envisioned or intended, such a miserable sad outcome, and it’s likely to haunt her for the rest of her life.
 
Then there is the Form 4 student at St. Peter’s Kandara Boys’ High School who had one of his testicles removed.
 
The school’s deputy principal accused the 18-year-old of being noisy and gave him four strokes of the cane on his buttocks. Afterwards he complained about pain in his groin and had to have one of his testicles removed.
 
This week, closer to home, a case was filed against Jamal Hossain, an assistant teacher of Rupdia Welfare Academy in the village of Rupdia, Jessore, for torturing Mizanur Rahman, 17, a class IX student. (The New Age/The Financial Express)

According to the report, Mizanur was severely beaten and injured by the teacher for asking one of his classmates to put his pen back on the table, which had fallen to the floor during a Bangla test. Following the beating, Mizanur left the classroom and went home without completing the test. He was later admitted to a local hospital.
 
Bangladeshi adults in their thousands have lifelong reminders of how horrific ignorant evil teachers were to them… loss of, or damage to, eyesight… perforated eardrums… broken fingers, hands, arms & legs, wounds, scars, dislocated shoulders, dislocated collarbones, twisted spines and perforated eardrums, just to mention a few.
 
But why should a child need to risk limb or life in the pursuit of education?
 
When will the pathetic ignorance of ‘teachers’ and their total disregard for the law in Bangladesh end? Remember these are the same people who are paid by Bangladeshi taxes to set good examples and teach what’s right and wrong. How long more will they be allowed to break the law, and avoid punishment? How long more will they be allowed to impair the future of Bangladeshi children, physically and mentally?
 
Ugandan Ministry of Education has adopted zero tolerance to schoolteachers who beat children at school and warned offenders they will be sacked and their teaching certificates revoked. Bangladesh is to issue its 64,000 schools with anti corporal punishment posters. Aren’t Bangladeshi children equally as important and valuable?
 
In 2011 Justice Md. Imman Ali and Md. Sheikh Hasan Arif outlawed the inhuman, ineffective, ignorant practice of corporal punishment in schools and madrasas throughout Bangladesh, declaring it to be “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and a clear violation of a child’s fundamental right to life, liberty and freedom”.
 
Why have ‘teachers’ in Bangladesh who have not learned the above paragraph in five years, have the audacity to mercilessly beat a child for not learning a poem overnight?
 
They intelligently argue a child needs discipline, and I whole-heartedly agree, but it would seem only ‘good’ teachers actually know the difference between discipline and corporal punishment!
 
Rabindranath Tagore, the internationally revered illustrious son of Bengali soil, who abhorred corporal punishment in all settings, said: “To discipline means to teach, not to punish”. But how many Bangladeshi ‘teachers’ have paid attention?
 
So-called Christian teachers are equally as ignorant and as bad. The ‘Christian’ ‘teachers’ have caused more suffering and damage to the lives of countless children throughout the centuries and, sadly, it continues to this very day.
 
Their excuse for their inexcusable behaviour is erroneously based on the Biblical passage that says: “spare the rod and spoil the child”. Unfortunately (ENORMOUS SIGH!) for hundreds of years they had it wrong and countless innocent children have suffered mercilessly as a result).
 
‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’ is generally interpreted to mean, children should be physically punished when they do wrong. Wrong!
 
Proverbs 13:24 says, ‘He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him’. In Hebrew the word “rod” is the same word used in Psalms 23:4, ‘thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.’
 
The shepherd’s rod/staff was/is used to ENCOURAGE, GUIDE, and DISCIPLINE the sheep towards taking a desired direction, NOT to beat, hurt or damage them. No shepherd would intentionally damage his flock and reduce its value.
 
Countless children worldwide have suffered unnecessarily because of this single error in translation without the ‘learned ones’ pausing long enough to even consider the incongruity of the statement they preach.
 
On one hand they tell us that Jesus taught children with love and that Joseph and Mary never beat Jesus. Shouldn’t it have occurred to these ‘learned people’ that to interpret ‘rod’ to mean a stick, therefore, was contradictory to the very teachings of Jesus? Jesus, Mary and Joseph were not people who subscribed to the adage, "do as I say, but don`t do as I do".
 
Corporal punishment is cruel, morally wrong, inhuman and degrading. It`s also totally ineffective. Countless studies worldwide attest to this. Disciplining children through fear, pain and their tear-filled eyes may seem to solve problems in the short term, but the practice always generates greater insurmountable problems in the long term.
 
And we must not forget Mizanur Rahman, Iyanuoluwa Dahunsi and the boy who lost his testicle (mentioned above) or the 12-young girls who were scarred for life after a demented schoolteacher took a red-hot cooking spatula to their legs at the Talimul Quran Mahila Madrasa. Nor should we forget the children who were given no support and seeing no way out of their dilemma, ended their misery through suicide.
 
The very foundation of the nation is built on schools – the mental gyms where young developing minds are rigorously exercised and prepared for universities and far beyond.
 
Schools should not be hellholes of fear where the once-in-a-lifetime gift of youth, fun and joy is mercilessly beaten out; and hatred, anger, scorn and revenge for society are beaten-in.
 
A school should be a learning place… an environment that stimulates the mind… where friends gather daily for fun, laughter, games and learning. A place where a child feels totally secure. A place where the child loves to be.
 
Then the only discipline needed in the home is for children to be warned by their parents they will not be allowed to attend school the following day if they don’t behave.

(The writer is a former newspaper and magazine publisher and editor, a royal goodwill ambassador, humanitarian, and a respected foreign non-political friend of Bangladesh. Three Bangladeshi babies have been named ‘Frank Peters’ in his honour).
 

risingbd/DHAKA/Apr 16, 2016/Augustin Sujan