Girls at a Swaziland school are being flogged by teachers on their bare flesh and if they resist they are chained down so the beating can continue.
They say they get up to 40 strokes at a time.
In protest, 300 school pupils at Mpofu High School, boycotted classes.
The Swazi Observer newspaper reported the children said ‘that when they are beaten, they are made to strip naked on the lower body so that the teachers can beat them on bare flesh’.
One girl told the newspaper, ‘The teachers make us lie on a bench whereby if you are a girl you lift your skirt so that they can beat you on bare flesh, if you resist you are chained to the bench.’
The pupils said they had had enough of being abused in the name of corporal punishment and other issues affecting them in the school.
Deputy Principal Enock Dlamini told the Observer, ‘We only administer the lawful six strokes but the only difference is that we use a pipe [instead of the regulation cane] which we believe is safer.’
A reporter from the Observer visited the school and found five police officers seated next to one of the classrooms while the school gate was locked as pupils walked aimlessly inside and outside the school premises.
Instead of sitting on their backsides, the police should go in and arrest the teachers for assault.
This is far from an isolated incident in schools in Swaziland where children are regularly tortured by their teachers in the name of punishment.
See also
BAN THE BEATING OF CHILDREN NOW
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/03/ban-beating-of-children-now.html
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