The call by new Unicef representative Dr Aloys Kamuragiye for the banning of corporal punishment in Barbados has received the backing of at least one child advocate.
Chairperson of the National Committee Monitoring the Rights of the Child, Faith Marshall-Harris, renewed her support for a ban during the UNICEF Eastern Caribbean area meeting with the committee at the Ministry of Social Care in Warrens on Wednesday.
During a presentation of statistics on Barbados’ progress in the sustainable development goals, Kamuragiye explained that a country’s profile was assessed by five broad dimensions: survival and thriving, learning, protection, environment and fair chance. He said the island was marked particularly weak in the areas of protection and fair chance due to insufficient and no data.
He reported that under protection, 75 per cent of children aged one to 14 had “experienced physical punishment and/or psychological aggression by caregivers in the past month”.
Kamuragiye urged the Ministry of Education to promote alternative ways to discipline rather than the culturally accepted corporal punishment.
Marshall-Harris, a retired magistrate of the Juvenile Court, agreed that more emphasis needed to be placed on alternatives to punishment. She said that because using lashes was a cultural norm, change would not occur overnight and therefore the efforts must be sustained.
“The concern that I have is, as long as children know that they can push you and push to the point where you will go to that point . . . ; if on the other hand, they know that the cut-off point is somewhere else, ‘Like I am going to take away your tablet’, then that becomes the standard.
“You don’t have to beat them . . . because you can lower the bar on punishment, ” she said.
Deputy principal of Graydon Sealy Secondary School, Peter Skeete, said that many educators, while acknowledging that corporal punishment may not improve learning outcomes, contended that it affected behaviour.
He said many teachers saw flogging as an effective way to control deviance and would likely push back against any bid to remove it.
He added that many educators would challenge UNICEF’s equating physical punishment and psychological aggression. (SDB Media)
