An
11-year-old boy in Swaziland lost an eye when a cane his schoolteacher was
using to illegally beat other pupils broke and splintered. It is one of a long
line of abuses against children in the kingdom in the name of corproral
punishment.
The boy
from Ekuphakameni Community Primary School in the
outskirts of Hlatikhulu was sitting at his desk in a classroom when it
happened.
The Times
of Swaziland reported
on Tuesday (26 September 2017), ‘The
youngster said he was not among the pupils who were being punished for
urinating outside the school toilets. Instead, he said he got injured in the
eye when the stick the teacher was using broke, with the broken piece flying
straight into his eyeball.’
The schoolboy’s father said
his son was first taken to Hlatikhulu Government Hospital where it was discovered
that most of the vital parts of the eye were seriously damaged. He was
transferred to the Mbabane Government Hospital where he was eventually operated
on and the eye removed.
This is not the first time
a child has been injured in this way. In
2011, a 10-year-old girl at kaLanga Nazarene Primary school was blinded for
life in her left eye after a splinter from a teacher’s stick flew and struck it
during punishment. She was injured when her teacher was hitting another pupil,
with a stick which broke.
Another pupil in Swaziland was thrashed so hard that he
later collapsed unconscious and had to be rushed to a clinic. Six pupils at
Mafucula High school were thrashed with 20 strokes of a ‘small log’ because
they were singing in class. It was reported
that the boy who became unconscious was not one of those misbehaving, but
he was flogged nonetheless.
In September 2015, the Times reported a 17-year-old school pupil died after allegedly
being beaten at school. The pupil reportedly had a seizure.
In March 2015, a primary school teacher at the Florence
Christian Academy was charged with causing grievous bodily harm
after allegedly giving 200 strokes of the cane to a 12-year-old pupil on her
buttocks and all over her body.
In 2011, it was reported girls at Mpofu High School were
being flogged by teachers on their bare flesh and if they resisted they were
chained down so the beating could continue. They were said to have been given
up to 40 strokes at a time. The Swazi Observer newspaper reported at the
time 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.’
Also in 2011,
Swaziland was told by the United Nations Human Rights Periodic Review held in
Geneva it should
stop using corporal punishment in schools, because it violated the rights
of children.
The United Nations Human Rights Periodic Review
received a report jointly written by Save The Children and other groups that
corporal punishment in Swazi schools was out of control. The report highlighted
Mhlatane High School in northern Swaziland where it said pupils were ‘tortured’
in the name of punishment.
The report stated, ‘Students at this school are also
subjected to all forms of inhumane treatment in the name of punishment. The
State has known about the torture of students that go on at Mhlatane High
School for a long time, but has not done anything to address this violation of
fundamental rights.’
In 2015, corporal
punishment was banned in Swaziland’s schools, but the practice continues. As
recently as August 2017 it was reported that boys at Salesian
High, a Catholic school, were forced to take down their trousers and underwear
to
be beaten on the naked buttocks.
The Times of Swaziland reported in
October 2015 that Phineas Magagula, Minister of Education and Training, warned
that teachers who beat pupils should be reported to the ministry so that they
could be disciplined.
See also
SWAZI
SCHOOL ‘TORTURES’ STUDENTS
CHILDREN
CHAINED AND FLOGGED BARE
PROBE
VICIOUS SCHOOL BEATINGS
SCHOOL
FLOGGINGS OUT OF CONTROL
SCHOOL
HEAD PUBLICLY FLOGS ADULTS
CANE
BANNED IN SWAZI SCHOOLS
TEACHERS BEAT BOY ON NAKED BUTTOCKS
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