violence against children WORLD REPORT ON - CRIN

“She [the teacher] knows she is doing wrong, but she feels impunity.She will go unpunished and she knows this.”Girl, 15, Europe, 2005 IV4In the view of the Committee, corporal punishmentis invariably degrading. In addition tothe physical aspects defined above, there aremany other non-physical forms of punishmentwhich are also cruel and degrading and thusincompatible with the CRC. These include, forexample, punishment which belittles, humiliates,denigrates, scapegoats, threatens, scares orridicules the child. Corporal punishment, andother forms of cruel or degrading punishmentused by school heads and teachers, were frequentlybrought to the attention of the Studyby children during all nine Regional Consultations.The Children’s Consultation in Sloveniaheaded its list of messages to be taken forwardto the Europe and Central Asia Regional Consultationwith: “That there should be a prohibitionof every kind of violence that happens inschools in every country and … schools shouldbe happy places in which children are eager tolearn.” 23 Similar messages came from childrenall over the world.The key set of studies on corporal punishment24 and a series of regional reports developedfor the Study 25 demonstrate a clear trendaway from corporal punishment in schools inall regions, most notably in Europe. Of the223 States and dependent territories trackedby the Global Initiative to End All CorporalPunishment of Children, 106 now have lawsbanning corporal punishment in all schoolsand another seven have laws banning it in someparts of the country, for example where provincesof a federal State have their own laws, orin some schools, such as only those funded bythe State. 26 However, laws banning corporalpunishment are often not effectively enforced,even in countries such as China where theyhave been in place for many years. 27 In Cameroon,a 1998 law bans corporal punishmentin schools but a study covering four of Cameroon’sprovinces, published two years after theban, found teachers made no secret of usingit for “cheekiness, disobedience and academicmistakes” and 97% of students reported thatthey had been physically punished. 28 The consequencesof non-enforcement can be serious.Other forms of cruel or degrading punishment,not involving physical violence, have been muchless studied. The Children’s Consultationsinforming the Study revealed that other formsof humiliation are very much on the mindsof children and lodged in the minds of manyadults with painful memories of how they ortheir classmates were humiliated by the wordsand actions of school heads and teachers.Cases have been reported of the use of corporalpunishment for reasons entirely beyond achild’s control, such as failure of parents to payschool fees, 29 and also for academic failure orto correct misbehaviour. In many situations,it is not easy to disentangle these two motivations.Studies in Egypt, 30 Lesotho 31 and Togo, 32and from Indian Ocean Island nations 33 showthat corporal punishment is widely used topunish unsatisfactory academic performance,as elsewhere. Studies of seven Middle Easternand North African countries reportedthat one-third of students said they hadbeen caned because their class or school hadnot done well on examinations. 34 Collectivepunishment for unsatisfactory performance ofa whole class or whole school was also commonlyreported.117Violence against children in schools and educational settings