The Barbershop and licks

HAZEL THOMPSON-AHYE

MANY PEOPLE let the electronic media into their homes and, in the process, develop a warm relationship with the hosts of various talk shows. Some hosts can immediately identify their regular callers. The relationship between hosts and listeners is a wonderful one.

One such programme is The Barbershop, which airs on Saturday mornings on i.95.5 FM. It seems to cater for the older folks, who feel valued, loved and entertained by the talk show hosts. Thus, it performs an important service. I enjoy the friendly banter between the hosts and their faithful listeners.

The radio is a powerful medium for exchange of ideas. It can be very influential. For that reason, I found profoundly disturbing the message sent on Saturday to listeners.

A caller recounted her childhood experience of being beaten by a neighbour for not bidding the neighbour “good morning.” The neighbour proceeded to tell the child’s mother, who beat the child. The mother later told the father, who in turn also beat the child. Three sets of licks for not saying “good morning?” Would a lecture on good manners not have sufficed?

This story was recounted with pride by the caller, advocating that similar treatment should be meted out to children today. The talk show host did not challenge her sentiment.

When will we learn that corporal punishment of children is wrong? We train children to solve problems with violence, then we are surprised that they perpetuate that violence in homes, schools and in the community. Mothers beat children, husbands beat wives, with a sense of entitlement.

Corporal punishment is a painful blow to children’s rights. This year will mark 34 years since the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) came into force, yet child rights advocates, like myself, are still fighting this battle for children to be recognised as equally entitled as adults to their human dignity and bodily integrity.

Article 19 of the CRC enjoins states to “take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parents, legal guardian or any other person who has the care of the child.”

We abolished corporal punishment in schools, correctional institutions, children’s homes and as a sentence but lack courage to abolish it in private homes.

Corporal punishment is violence against children. Dressing it up in soft language like spanking, smacking or licks does not soften the blow. It is still violence.

Although there is a great deal of research which reveals the dangerous and harmful effects on children of corporal punishment, both physical and psychological harm, we still embrace corporal punishment as an acceptable form of discipline of children in their homes, places where children should feel safe and secure.

We ignore the admonitions of UNESCO that corporal punishment is counterproductive and ineffective and dangerous and harmful to children. We turn up our noses at Save the Children when they say they oppose all forms of corporal punishment.

We scoff at the findings of the Australian Psychological Society and the American Humane Society that corporal punishment is ineffective in deterring undesirable behaviour and, in fact, promotes undesirable behaviour.

We disregard the Canadian Pediatric Society, the UK’s Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the American Academy of Pediatrics and our own local and regional bodies.

Who cares about the increased aggression in children, the anxiety and fear generated, the decrease in self-esteem, the lesson learnt that violence is an acceptable way to handle conflict, the injuries to health, developmental delays and threats to the right to life of which these experts warn?

Does it matter that a UNECLAC/UNICEF study estimated that every year, worldwide, 275 million children are victims of violence in their homes or that in Latin America and the Caribbean, 40 million children under 15 suffer violence, abuse and neglect in the family, the school and the community? It is only when children are killed that we sit up and take notice.

April 30 was the International Day to End Corporal Punishment of Children. To date, only 65 states in the world have abolished all corporal punishment of children. Governments have committed to ending corporal punishment of children by 2030. Will we?

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said: If we really want a peaceful and compassionate world, we need to build communities of trust where all children are respected, where home and school are safe places to be and where discipline is taught by example. May God give us grace to love our children as He loves us and may their trust in us lead them to trust in Him.

How can we accept that corporal punishment is wrong when our loving parents did it to us? So, we must reject that thought that we were harmed or abused. Psychologists call it cognitive dissonance. We turned out all right, didn’t we? Did we though?

Hazel Thompson-Ahye is an Independent senator