Corporal Punishment
Samavia Awan

‘Hey you! Come here and I will give you a good spanking and you will never be late to school again’. Cried the teacher. ‘Oh please, no madam, I was late because of the traffic…’ ‘No! I wont listen to this nonsense and teach you not to go to school’. After this I heard some strikes of a stick on parts of the child’s body and the red handed, tearful child went to his seat. Ah! That was what I saw when once passing by a government school. But wait! Not only in government schools, do we hear or see this victimization often. We can observe it at different places. When innocent poor children are struck or beaten, do we ever try to save them? The answer is not even once. What is this term corporal punishment? Well, ‘in criminology, it is some manner of physical punishment inflicted by judicial law on the body of the offender’. From this definition, we come to know that only the offender of the society is entitled to this punishment, but in this unjust world, small children are punished as offenders. The punishment givers are parents, teachers (mostly) and even relatives. We should understand that if a child does not behave well, this could be due to various reasons. He could have domestic problems or maltreatment of parents or teachers. We should try to get to get to root of the problem before carrying out these kind of inhuman actions. If physical punishment of a child prevails over a long time period, he ultimately becomes indifferent to this maltreatment and all his self confidence gets destroyed.

If we want to make our world and our country a better place to live, corporal punishment should be abolished. It is up to our elders and lawmakers, what stances do they take on giving a safe environment to children from this social evil.

OPF Girls College Rawalpindi