|
FOR three years, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), the Education Department of the Ministry of Human Resource Development and UNICEF have voiced their concern on the mounting violence on children in the form of corporal punishment. All forms of corporal punishment are a breach of fundamental rights of the child and a crime. It is a crime that is committed not just by schoolteachers, principals, remand homes but also by parents, who are short-tempered and resort to slapping a child, twisting her/his arms and even burning the fingers when the child does not fall in line — kowtowing to the authorities. One of the first acts of the NCPCR in August, 2007, was banning corporal punishment because it impinged on the child’s dignity and safety in public institutions. Its guidelines were put up in schools and adequately publicised by the NCERT and state governments. In fact, 16 states banned corporal punishment but reports of violence against children continued to trickle in. Then, before the start of the academic session in 2009, additional guidelines were sent to district collectors/magistrates/deputy commissioners and secretaries of school education in the states to ensure that violence against children was stopped. Despite all these warnings and steps taken by the NCPCR, yet another child committed suicide in Kolkata.
So, the arrest of the principal and four senior teachers of the elite La Martiniere School of Kolkata for caning Class VIII student Rouvanjit Rawla, allegedly leading to his suicide a week later in February 2010, has set a precedent. It should send out a strong signal to schoolteachers, principals and others responsible for the well-being of children that they have to first understand the child and then find other appropriate methods to discipline him. Gone are the days of ‘spoiling the rod and sparing the child.’ In fact, at a public hearing on corporal punishment held by the NCPCR in Tamil Nadu early in 2008, Vasanti Devi, former chairperson of the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, pointed out that 91 schoolchildren in Tamil Nadu had committed suicide in a five-year span because of physical, mental and sexual harassment. The NCPCR had asked for the public hearing because it had received the highest number of complaints from that state. The brutalities ranged from giving electric shocks, physical and sexual abuse, asking children to strip, and discrimination based on caste, resulting in children committing suicide. These scars inflicted in childhood cannot be healed and affect the child’s abilities as well as attitudes life long, says Shantha Sinha, chairperson of the NCPCR. Children want to be treated with respect. But many of them are unable to gather the courage to speak up or complain. In fact, according to a nationwide study on child abuse in India by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in 2007, two out of three school-going children in India were physically abused, with boys the most likely target. A high prevalence of corporal punishment was found in all settings — homes, schools, institutions and even on the street. The study showed that corporal punishment took place in every district of the country and punishment as a tool to discipline children was deeply ingrained in both government and private schoolteachers. But most children did not report the abuse to anyone, continuing to suffer in silence. The most commonly reported punishment was being slapped and kicked (63.7 per cent), followed by being beaten with a stave or stick (31.3 per cent) and being pushed, shaken etc (5 per cent). For many, the hurt resulted in serious physical injury, swelling or bleeding. Peter Newell, coordinator of the global initiative to end all forms of corporal punishment of children, was in Delhi in February last year at the invitation of UNICEF and spoke on ‘the human rights imperative to eliminate and prohibit all forms of corporal punishment.’ He said corporal punishment killed and maimed countless children and needs to be challenged, and not just as a child protection issue. For long, people, including those responsible for the protection of children, have tried to keep child cruelty or abuse and corporal punishment in two separate boxes. But all physical abuse of children administered in the context of punishment or control is corporal punishment, he points out. Maybe, just a tiny minority of perpetrators are psychotic and don’t have any punitive motive for assaulting their children. So, ending corporal punishment is an essential strategy for ending all forms of violence against children. We, in India, have drawn a lot from the British system of education – especially in the elite private schools. England in its colonial past, along with other colonial powers, had a lot to do with spreading and institutionalising corporal punishment, in the context of slavery and military occupation, in the development of school and penal systems, and through some missionary teachings. At least 70 countries have adopted the English common law of "reasonable chastisement," Newell said. Research on the potential effects of corporal punishment reveal that it could lead to the development of violent attitudes and actions in childhood and adult life. It could result in low self-esteem, depression, delinquency — all traits that no parent or society want for their children. Challenging and ending adults’ punitive violence against children is central to the Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC). The Committee on the Rights of Children, the monitoring body of the CRC, had in 2000 and again in 2004 reminded India to prohibit corporal punishment. India’s Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, endorsed by Parliament earlier this year, too, bans corporal punishment. Prof Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who was director of NCERT till recently, says the council’s nationwide survey of emotional experiences in a classroom of 1100 children, revealed that those who were frequently scolded developed poor learning abilities. Poor classroom environment, use of foul language and beating impacted a student’s learning ability, the survey found. The survey conducted in Delhi, Ajmer, Bhopal, Shillong and Bengaluru brought to light disturbing trends of children fearing schools because of the physical and mental abuse inflicted on them. Owing to the devaluation of the teaching profession, Prof Kumar said, the right people who valued these important ingredients of education were not being attracted to this field.
|
||||||||