Ban corporal punishment • School children plead

Daily Graphic (pg11) Thurs. June 7/10

Story Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho
CHILDREN in the Greater Accra Region have called for an end to corporal punishment and sexual abuse in schools.
According to them, those two abuses retarded their ability to study effectively in the school environment.
At a discussion forum preceding the celebration of this year’s International Day of the African Child, which falls today, the children, who were mostly from the Ablekuma and the Amasaman districts, voiced out their concerns against corporal punishment and child sexual abuse in schools.
They said there was the need for the government and the Ghana Education Service (GES) to intervene to ensure that those two abuses were halted in schools.
The International Day of the African Child was initiated by the then Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) on the anniversary of the 1976 Soweto protests when thousands of black schoolchildren took to the streets under the South African apartheid regime. The day was dedicated in honour of the children’s actions.
The celebration of the day is aimed at fighting the cause of children in trouble, AIDS orphans, child soldiers and impoverished youth who will inherit the continent and this year’s celebration is on the theme, “Budgeting for children — Our collective responsibility”.
The discussion forum, organised by Plan Ghana, in conjunction with ActionAid, Ghana, was on a local theme, “Sexual violence and corporal punishment in schools”.
It brought together about 1,000 basic and junior high schoolchildren.
The children, in their various submissions, said corporal punishment such as caning was the least and most ineffective way of correcting a child and called for the use of dialogue or other forms of punishment that would not be injurious or harmful to the child.
They also argued that corporal punishment, when meted out to them in the classroom, usually made them timid and unable to concentrate on what was being taught in class.
On sexual abuse, the children enumerated the contracting of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as HIV and AIDS and also teenage pregnancy as some of the end results of sexual abuse in schools.
The Country Director of Plan Ghana, Mr Samuel Paulous, in a brief remark, said children were the future of every nation and there was, therefore, the need for all stakeholders, including the government and parents, to ensure that they had the best of education and a safe environment where they could grow.
He said all children had the right to quality education but indicated that several factors, including sexual abuse and corporal punishment, made it impossible for them to complete school.
He said the programme was aimed at giving the African child the opportunity to voice out his or her concerns for action to be taken to better his or her future.
The Country Director of ActionAid, Ghana, Ms Adwoa Kwateng-Kluvitse, said the programme was aimed at raising awareness of violence against children in schools to help put an end to it.
She said a communiqué which would voice out the concerns of the children would be presented to the Ministry of Education and Parliament for consideration.
A drama dubbed “Cinderama”, which focused on child abuse and was sponsored by the National Theatre, was screened for the children with the aim of helping them to be more assertive when they were confronted with issues of abuse in school.