‘INHUMANE’ THRASHING OF SCHOOLGIRL, 17

A 17-year-old Swaziland schoolgirl was thrashed with 22 lashes of the cane by a male teacher because her mother is too poor to pay her school fees.

Save the Children Fund Director Dumsani Mnisi called the action ‘inhumane’ and ‘a crime’.

Local media in Swaziland say the girl from Emtfonjeni High School was one of a group of school students who had been told to stay away from school until their school fees had been paid. When they nonetheless turned up for classes they were beaten.

The severity of the punishment breaks regulations in Swaziland that state students can only be given a maximum of six lashes with the cane and male teachers should not beat female students.

Save the Children Fund Director Dumsani Mnisi told the Swazi Observer newspaper, ‘This is really inhumane. Beating a child for the fact that he/she hasn’t paid school fees is a crime on its own.’

Mnisi added, ‘How can you beat someone for something beyond his/her control? This is very worrying. There are clear guidelines for corporal punishment.’

He said the teacher who did this should be arrested and relieved of his duties.

The schoolgirl told the Observer, ‘What is very painful is that my mother is unable to pay my school fees because she is unemployed.’

Minister of Education and Training Wilson Ntshangase told the newspaper he not believe there was a teacher who could treat a child this way.

‘First of all no teacher is supposed to punish pupils. The guidelines for corporal punishment state that only the headteacher is responsible for punishing pupils,’ he said.

This is not the first time children at Emtfonjeni High School have been whipped because their parents could not afford to pay school fees. In July 2011 media in Swaziland reported children were given up to 10 lashes each. The school principal at the time Themba Shongwe confirmed to the newspaper that the pupils were being beaten for coming to school without the fees. 

‘We have been telling them over and over not to come to school without the money but they still come. We had no option but to give them punishment for not obeying the instruction to stay at home,’ the newspaper reported him saying.

When asked how true it was that the pupils were being given as many as 10 strokes he said, ‘If a pupil is told to stay at home but defies the instruction on the first day, you give that pupil a certain number of strokes. But if the same pupil comes to school again the following day, you have no choice but to increase the number of strokes.’

These are not the only examples of children being abused by their schools.  In October 2011, Swaziland was told by the United Nations Human Rights Periodic Review it must stop flogging children at school because it violated their human rights. But the fact that the practice of whippings is so ingrained in Swazi schools was demonstrated by Sibongile Mazibuko, President of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT), who said at the time he was surprised that inflicting corporal punishment was against a child’s rights. 

 

Save the Children told the United Nations the treatment of children in Swaziland schools amounted to ‘torture’.

There are countless examples of extreme and often perverted use of corporal punishment in schools. At Mpofu High School girls are flogged by teachers on their bare flesh and if they resist they are chained down so the beating can continue. They get up to 40 strokes at a time.  

At Phonjwane primary school teachers lined up to whip 20 children. Each child received 27 lashes as nine teachers took it in turn to give each one three cuts. The children’s crime? They had been watching two boys fighting. 

See also

NO SCHOOL FEES SO CHILDREN WHIPPED

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/07/no-school-fees-so-pupils-whipped.html

 

CHILDREN CHAINED AND FLOGGED BARE

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/03/pupils-chained-and-flogged-bare.html

PROBE VICIOUS SCHOOL BEATINGS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/03/probe-vicious-school-beatings.html

 

SCHOOL FLOGGINGS OUT OF CONTROL

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/02/school-floggings-out-of-control.html

SCHOOL FLOGGINGS OUT OF CONTROL

A school pupil in Swaziland was thrashed so hard that he later collapsed unconscious and had to be rushed to a clinic.

Then, the school’s principal blamed the boy himself – saying he may have reacted badly because he has a ‘phobia’ to being beaten.

There’s an old journalism saying: ‘You couldn’t make it up’, meaning something is so outlandish that it can’t be fiction.

I thought I’d heard it all when it was reported at the weekend that one high school principal publicly flogged adults in front of his school assembly if they broke rules that he had set.

What is it about Swazi teachers and their need to flog children, often using bizarre rituals?

In the latest example, it is reported that six pupils at Mafucula High school were thrashed with 20 strokes of a ‘small log’ because they were singing in class. It is reported that the boy who became unconscious wasn’t even one of those misbehaving, but he was flogged nonetheless.

The maximum number of strokes permitted at the school is three. But pupils at the school told the Times of Swaziland that heavy punishment was rife and 20 strokes was usually the minimum number given.

They said that the teachers have a ‘beating time roster’ which shows which teacher gives the beatings at a particular day and time.

The pupils said the teachers use tigidvo, referring to smaller logs for beating them.

The teacher in this case is said to have used a stick which was wrapped in insulation tape to keep it from breaking, regardless of how many strokes were given.

The school’s Principal Popi Hlatshwako told the newspaper, ‘It is possible that he [the boy who became unconscious] has a kind of phobia about being beaten and this is what could have resulted in him fainting.’

Corporal punishment in schools is rife in Swaziland and although there are rules about the number of strokes that may be given and how punishment may be administered, these rules are largely ignored.

Late in 2010, the Swaziland Ministry of Education and Training reported that it had been inundated with calls on a toll-free phone line it set up to receive complaints of abuse from children about the high number of caning strokes they got from teachers.

There are many cases of physical abuse of children by their teachers. In March 2009, a nine-year-old primary school child was whipped so badly by her teacher she died of her injuries.

In May 2010, 30 children were lined up and publicly whipped in a bizarre corporal punishment ritual at their primary school. The children were called to a school assembly where they found the principal, members of the school committee, their parents and some teachers, all armed with sticks. The school’s principal said people shouldn’t be concerned about it because they get whipped all the time. ‘The children are used to it,’ she said.

Then there was the case of the sadistic school teachers who lined up to whip 20 children at a primary school. Each child received 27 lashes from nine teachers who took it in turns to give each child three cuts. The children’s crime? They had been watching two boys fighting.

Another time, 18 primary school children were whipped with a piece of pipe on their backsides because they were eating their lunch from buckets.

In October 2008, the Times reported 35 pupils of Oslo High School were whipped after a cell phone rang during a lesson. On this occasion a group of teachers illegally beat each member of the class.

In 2005, The International Save the Children Alliance published research into Swazi children’s experiences of corporal punishment.

In a survey, 20 percent of children reported being hit with a hand and 59 percent of children reported being beaten with an object at school during a two-week period. In schools, children are most often hit with the hand, sticks, canes, sjamboks and blackboard dusters.

Children reported being subjected to corporal punishment at school due to making a noise or talking in class, coming late to school, not completing work, not doing work correctly, failing tests, wearing incorrect uniform items, dropping litter, losing books or leaving them at home.

HUNGER STUNTING SWAZI CHILDREN

Four children out of ten in Swaziland are so malnourished that their growth has been permanently stunted.

The children are also damaged socially and mentally. Many have problems learning.

Many children are so hungry they collapse at school.

And the Swazi Government has no plans in place to solve the crisis.

There are now fears that once overseas’ food aid to Swaziland is reduced even more children will go hungry and suffer permanent damage.

The Save the Children Fund in Swaziland has issued dire warnings for the future health of children in the kingdom.

In the past year about 600,000 out of Swaziland’s total population of less than one million people have received donor food aid.

The Weekend Observer (5 July 2008) reported that many children, especially in the Lowveld area of the kingdom, that has suffered severe drought for many years, were seldom fed at home.

Only school feeding schemes are keeping them alive.

Save The Children Executive Director Dumisani Mnisi told the Weekend Observer that schoolteachers were concerned about the suffering of these children.

‘They complain that the children collapse because they have nothing to eat both at home and school,’ the Weekend Observer reported him saying.

He said Swaziland had not produced enough food to feed its population for the past five years.

Mnisi said that there were a growing number of families in Swaziland that were headed by children. Often, these households had no income coming in. This made children vulnerable to ‘being abused and exploited in exchange for food’.

Often, children left rural areas to go to towns and cities ‘and create another social challenge for the country,’ Mnisi said.

The Weekend Observer reported that Mnisi challenged the three-month stoppage of food distribution by the Disaster Management Agency. It is expected that people can grow their own food, but in the Lowveld ‘even backyard gardens are impossible’.

Mnisi criticised the Swazi Government for not having plans in place to deal with the food crisis even though the World Health Organisation said plans should be implemented within countries when the figure on stunted children reached 35 percent.

The Weekend Observer reported that recently the World Food Programme’s Country Director Abdoulaye Balde had noted that the food shortage in Swaziland could no longer be seen as a short-term crisis caused by drought. Instead, it was now a chronic problem that needed to be investigated. The problem was made worse by the chronic poverty in Swaziland where about 70 percent of the population earn less than one US Dollar a day.

People in Swaziland are so poor that many have no means to work their fields.

Mnisi said the government should encourage people to diversify the crops they grow and move away from a dependency on growing maize and instead try drought resistant crops.

Mnisi said, ‘Looking at the situation on the ground, one would realise that the situation is likely to get completely out of hand because of the growing number of children who struggle to find something to eat.’

SWAZI CHILDREN WHIPPING STORM

The Times of Swaziland has gone to town over a report that 18 primary school children were ‘whipped’ because they were eating their lunch from buckets.

The Times reported yesterday (30 May 2008) that the chairman of the school saw the children and ordered them into the principal’s office.

The Times quotes an unnamed source,

‘It was in the principal’s office where he whipped the pupils, allegedly with a piece of pipe on their backsides.

‘And after satisfying himself, the chairman walked to his homestead.’

The report says children were ‘crying hysterically’ after the incident.

‘The source said the other pupils in lower grades were traumatised when they saw the seniors in tears.’

Unusually for the Swazi media, the Times did not leave the story there. It realised there was much more of a public interest issue here. It contacted Swaziland Save the Children, where a spokesperson said, ‘The chairman needs to be fired.’ Save the Children said the children’s rights had been ‘grossly violated’.

The spokesperson said the chairman had no mandate to beat the children – according to Swazi law corporal punishment should be meted out by the school principal, or at least in the presence of the principal.

Not only did Save the Children object to the treatment, pupils at the school itself protested. Classes were disrupted as pupils demonstrated around the school premises, demanding an apology from the school chairman, according to the Times.

What makes this report interesting is that it is not that unusual. The Swazi Constitution allows the corporal punishment of children and Swazi culture expects it. From time to time over the past few years there have been reports of adults seriously harming children when ‘punishing’ them. But when the media ask Swazis whether they approve of corporal punishment, the vast majority says, yes.

Unsurprisingly, for this is Swaziland after all, many cite the Bible in defence of their actions.

I suspect that in the case of this primary school, had the principal been the one to dish out the whippings there would have been no story.

In Swaziland it is also legal for children to be sentenced to whippings by magistrates. (I seem to remember somewhere that magistrates had been told to find other methods of punishment, so whipping had fallen into disuse. I can’t confirm this, so I’d be grateful if anyone could enlighten me.)

What I do know is that as recently as 2006 Swazi newspapers were reporting cases from magistrates’ courts at which whipping sentences (more usually referred to as ‘lashings’ by the media) were given.

Although the court beatings are done in private and we don't know much about them, they are clearly brutal.

The Swazi Observer reported (22 March 2006) on one case of a 14-year-old boy sentenced to three strokes.

‘Before the three strokes are administered on the boy’s buttocks, he will be taken to a doctor for a medical check-up. If found to be healthy, the juvenile will then be taken to Mdutjane where the punishment will be meted out.’

Any ‘punishment’ that requires the recipient to have a medical check up before hand must be brutal indeed.

The International Save the Children Alliance - did some research into Swazi children’s experiences of corporal punishment.

Its report found 18 percent of children reported being subjected to corporal punishment by being hit with the hand in the home during a period of two weeks, and 28 percent of children experienced corporal punishment in the form of being beaten with objects such as sticks, belts, sjamboks and whips during the same period.

Boys aged 6 - 12 years described being beaten for breaking things, stealing, not looking after livestock properly, going out to play instead of working, or playing out too late. Young children, mainly girls, were punished for issues related to household chores.

On many occasions corporal punishment was linked to additional punishment such as chores, hard physical labour or withholding food.

A number of children reported being beaten by parents or relatives while the adults were under the influence of alcohol.

Twenty percent of children reported being hit with a hand and 59 percent of children reported being beaten with an object at school during the two-week period. In schools, children are most often hit with the hand, sticks, canes, sjamboks and blackboard dusters.

Children reported being subjected to corporal punishment at school due to making a noise or talking in class, coming late to school, not completing work, not doing work correctly, failing tests, wearing incorrect uniform items, dropping litter, losing books or leaving them at home, etc.

There are a lot more depressing accounts of the routine abuse of children by their parents, caregivers and schools in the report.

To access the report click here.