Hitting hurts for a lifetime
By Samavia Awan

‘Hey you! Come here. 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 will not listen to this nonsense and teach you never to come late 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.

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 by parents or teachers. We should try to get to the root of the problem before carrying out these kinds of inhuman actions. If physical punishment of a child prevails over a long time, he/she ultimately becomes indifferent to this maltreatment and his self confidence is shattered.

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

OPF Girls College, Rawalpindi