Spare the rod

The panel views corporal punishment as invariably degradin


Editorial November 26, 2018

Tayyaba torture case left a deep scar on our collective conscience. Few incidents of violence have sparked such societal reaction in recent memory as this one, involving a judge and his wife who treated their housemaid mercilessly and with utter disregard to human values.

Now this case has worked as stimulus for the government to prepare a draft bill designed to prohibit corporal punishment altogether. The bill has been prepared in compliance with the Supreme Court’s July 3 order in the Tayyaba torture case in light of recommendations of a committee constituted by the apex court. It proposes six-month jail for whoever is found involved in subjecting children to corporal punishment or a fine of up to Rs50,000 or both. ‘Corporal punishment stands abolished in all its kinds and manifestations and its practices in any form is prohibited,’ reads the draft bill on the protection of the child. The initial draft defining ‘child at risk’ says the child in need of protection includes an orphan along with those with disabilities, born to migrants, working on streets and involved in begging’.

The list also includes homeless children, those who live in a brothel, a child who is in imprisonment with the mother or born in jail.

What constitutes corporal punishment? A UN Committee on the Rights of the Child defines ‘corporal’ or ‘physical’ punishment as ‘any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light. Most involves hitting (smacking, slapping, spanking) children, with the hand or with an implement’. The panel views corporal punishment as invariably degrading. Fittingly, it points out some non-physical forms of punishment that are also cruel and degrading. These include, for example, punishment which belittles, humiliates, denigrates, scapegoats, threatens, scares or ridicules the child. We hope that the bill takes into account this broader definition as well and a fine-tuned draft is processed for it to become a piece of legislation in due course.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 26th, 2018.

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