Ugandan enacted anti-corporal punishment law
Uganda’s signing of the Children Act (Amendment) Bill 2015 into law this week has been hailed as a milestone for the children of Uganda and a directional sign and blueprint for other countries to follow.
Key amendments include the protection of children from child marriage, female genital mutilation, harmful employment, violence and corporal punishment in schools.
Breaking the law attracts imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine not exceeding US$20,000 or both. Ugandan Ministry of Education has adopted zero tolerance to schoolteachers who beat children at school and warned offenders they will be sacked and their teaching certificates revoked.
Aida Girma, United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF’s) representative in Uganda, who congratulated the Government of Uganda and President Yoweri Museveni, said: “the legislation puts in place that required for all children’s fundamental rights to be legally protected.” Dr. John Chrysostom Muyingo said: “Beating children is outdated. The government abolished beating in schools because it was one of the major reasons why children drop out of schools. If a teacher is found guilty of beating a child, his or her (practicing) certificate will be cancelled,” he warned.
In 2011 Justice Md. Imman Ali and Md. Sheikh Hasan Arif outlawed the inhuman, ineffective, ignorant practice of corporal punishment in schools and madrasas throughout Bangladesh, declaring it to be: ‘cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and a clear violation of a child’s fundamental right to life, liberty and freedom’.
The senseless inhuman practice of beating children in Bangladesh still continues and serves no useful purpose except to highlight the ignorance of the perpetrators and those who condone it.
Sir Frank Peters
Dhaka
