SWAZI ANTI-ABUSE GROUP PRO-WHIPPING

In Swaziland it’s all right to beat up your children so long as you don’t beat them up too much.

Wait a moment, it gets better: this is according to the Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse. Yes, you read that correctly AGAINST abuse.

Nontobeko Mbuyane, the programme director of the organisation known locally as SWAGAA, was responding to recent reports of ‘severe beatings meted out on children by their parents and teachers’. She told the Swazi Observer yesterday (16 June 2008) that SWAGAA ‘condemned’ such beatings.

Well, as it happens SWAGAA only ‘condemns’ them a little bit. The Observer reports her saying ‘away with child violence and beating without a valid cause’.

The Observer said, ‘She stressed though that they were not saying children must not be beaten but that appropriate care should be taking when punishing them.’

The comments come after two reports last week about children assaulted at their schools.

The Times of Swaziland (11 June 2008) reported that a girl, aged 15, was stripped of her pantyhose before being whipped ‘about 15 times until the sjambok broke’.

The newspaper shows graphic photographs of the scars left on her thighs. Channel Swazi (Channel S) had also featured the girl in a news report the previous evening. The Times reports that the school disputes she got 15 lashes – the principal said she only got six.

On the same day (11 June 2008), the Swazi Observer reported the case of a form-four boy who was ‘severely beaten’ with six lashes by the deputy principal at his school. The newspaper showed photographs on its front page of welts and bruises on the boy’s thighs.

I said previously that such assaults on children by their parents, guardians and schools are common in Swaziland. When questioned, adults in Swaziland in large numbers support the use of corporal punishment on children.

I doubt if this will change any time soon. The use of violence is ingrained in Swazi culture, even though the kingdom’s leaders try to tell the world that Swaziland is a ‘peaceful’ kingdom.

I pity the children of Swaziland and I pity them all the more so that an organisation such as SWAGAA that is suppose to be against abuse, supports their continued whipping.

See also
SWAZI CHILDREN WHIPPING STORM
SWAZI CHILD WHIPPING – UPDATE