Our Promise to End Corporal Punishment

Masum Billah

It has widely been proved that corporal punishment does not help change attitudes and behavior in society towards positive, non-violent child rearing, still it continues almost all over the world.

30 April `The International Day to End Corporal Punishment’ is observed to advocate for protecting children from violent forms of punishment - in all settings that offers us an opportunity to support all child victims of corporal punishment and call for better, faster protection of children. It is the most common form of violence against children that occurs in schools, juvenile justice centres, and alternative care settings and at homes. Researches on corporal punishment reveal that it causes long-term, sometimes lifelong harm to the victims. It harms physical health, and causes cognitive and behavioural problems, aggression and depression to the children. Yet, 86% of the world’s 2.2 billion children are not legally protected from this heinous practice.

The past education scene of our country exposes before us that the teachers were highly

dedicated towards their profession even though they didn’t have professional training. Their commitment and professional honesty gave them some moral rights to punish the learners that was accepted in the society as guardians thought without the punishing behaviour of the teachers, their wards would not be real human beings. However, no thought, no research even no observation was then available to ascertain the negative impact of physical punishment. That stood as a tradition. A portion of today’s teachers also want to bear it as its legacy without giving any thoughts on tremendous change has taken place in teaching style, student psychology, student behavior and teacher student relationship because of globalization. How the teachers of the educationally supreme countries behave with the students and how they deal with them remained totally unknown in those days that easily appears today.

The global reality appears with 65 countries’ banning corporal punishment with the latest one in Mauritius. UNICEF has also been creating content and sharing inspiring examples of teachers who have found positive discipline methods much better at engaging students in their learning. In Islamabad, Pakistan where corporal punishment was recently banned in formal and informal educational institutions, childcare institutions and juvenile rehabilitation centres, the Parliamentary Child Rights caucus is planning to launch awareness on the rules of the Act passed by Parliament and rules notified by the Ministry of Education. Ethiopian School Readiness Initiative (ESRI), a non-profit organization in Ethiopia is promoting early child care and education, discussing positive child discipline with teachers and parents. ESRI and collaborators have published the results of a survey of parental methods of disciplining children in Ethiopia and have developed and adapted a parent training manual in the eight most common languages of the country that calls appreciation. Our court has banned corporal punishment in our educational institutions but social media sometimes bring that minor children are being beaten mercilessly that needs to be stopped once and for all. 

Any corporal punishment violates children’s right to respect for their human dignity and physical integrity, and their rights to health, development, education and freedom from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

I served in cadet colleges where manhandling is prohibited. However, children have to face some physical punishment though not in the same form the civil institution’s usually do. Cadets have to undergo punishment in the military style such as extra drill, crawling, front roll, frog jump etc.

Though, these types of punishments are considered as physical exercise, cares need to be taken in this area as well. Numerous researches in the world find no connection between the corporal punishment and the development of certain patterns of behavior and the structure of the child’s personality. Governments of many have committed to ending violence against children by 2030, but corporal punishment continues to blight billions of children’s lives worldwide. Only one in seven children globally are protected by laws against corporal punishment, which is the most common form of violence against children ranging from smacking to more extreme abuse. 

We know today’s teachers have to remain busy with so many affairs and due to some other undue pressures, they struggle to keep their mental situation cool. In addition to that, the unruly behaviour of the students and large class size in some cases put them into serious stressful situation. And in some cases, they resort to punishing the students physically. They should remember that physical and humiliating punishment affects a child’s brain development and their emotional wellbeing, which can lead to long term mental health issues. There’s overwhelming evidence that corporal punishment leads to increased anti-social behaviors and aggression, which can carry on into adulthood, at great cost to society. So, teachers need to increase their stress management capacity so that they can really deal with students in a sound and accepted manner even in any stressful situation in the greater interest of the profession.

Masum Billah, President: English Teachers’ Association of Bangladesh (ETAB)

Cell: 01714-091431 Email: masumbillah65@gmail.com