Asia-Pacific, Development & Aid, Headlines, Human Rights

RIGHTS-ASIA: Children’s Cry Against Corporal Punishment Gets Hearing

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Jun 14 2005 (IPS) - She is barely in her teens, yet Hilda Wong’s worries go beyond her school books and passing her next exams. The 14-year-old from Hong Kong flew into town this week to raise a cry against corporal punishment.

”It is a fact in all societies, such abuse,” said Wong with the confidence found among passionate child rights activists. ”If children are victims of corporal punishment at home, they feel unloved. It hurts physically and mentally.”

For Michael Bendall, a 16-year-old from New Zealand, governments are insincere about the issue. ”They often contradict themselves by saying you cannot punish children this way, yet they accept corporal punishment with reasonable force.”

There is only one alternative to remedy such a reality, he said: ”Corporal punishment should be made illegal.”

Such appeals by Wong and Bendall are due to get a receptive ear from participants at a conference addressing the scale of violence against children in East Asia and the Pacific region, which began here Tuesday.

But corporal punishment is not all that child rights activists from some 16 countries, including teenaged activists like Wong and Bendall, will review. Also to come under scrutiny are other forms of violence children are subject to on the street, in the work place, in institutions and in cyberspace.

The child-victims in this region are among the estimated 40 million children under 15 years who suffer from violence, abuse and neglect, Anupama Rao Singh, regional director of the United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) East Asia and Pacific office, said on the opening morning of this three-day conference.

Studies by UNICEF in the region reveal that ”physical disciplinary measures and the punishment of children are in general culturally accepted.” The leading three countries where children admit to being beaten by their parents at home are East Timor, Cambodia and Burma, states ”Violence Against Children in East Asia and Pacific – Regional Assessment.”

It is a climate that stems from physical abuse being commonplace in households across the region, the U.N. body adds. Papua New Guinea topped such a list in another UNICEF study, followed by Vietnam, East Timor, South Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Street children, likewise, have confessed to beatings. ”UNICEF Country Offices in Vietnam, the Philippines, Mongolia and Cambodia all stress the worrying trend of violence among street children, for instance in the form of gang fights and violent gang initiation practices,” the UNICEF study adds.

According to Sawon Hong, UNICEF’s regional child protection adviser, boys outnumber girls among the victims of physical abuse, but ”girls are more frequently assaulted sexually than boys.”

A study conducted in China revealed such contrasting realities, she told the conference, since a greater number of boys than girls admitted to being hit, kicked, tied up, choked or stabbed, she told the conference. On the other hand, more girls than boys said they had been touched, fondled and forced to have sex.

The information due to come out of this meeting will feed into a landmark global study underway to gauge the extent and causes of violence against children and suggest measures to stamp them out.

”Children must benefit from this process. So far, some governments are showing openness to discuss the issues that are very delicate,” Paulo Pinheiro, the independent expert appointed by the U.N. secretary-general for this study, told IPS.

It is a study that would shed light on a scourge that ”remains too common and yet too hidden,” he told the conference. ”(Violence against children) is present in every country, frequently invisible and cutting across boundaries of culture, class, education, income, ethnic origin and age.”

Five other regional meetings have been held since March to gather details for the global report, which Pinheiro is due to submit to the U.N. General Assembly in October 2006.

Child rights activists are hoping that governments will show the same enthusiasm for this report as they did in the manner countries embraced the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), a landmark international treaty to protect and uphold children’s rights. Currently 192 states have ratified the CRC.

Yet, for the planned global study to be meaningful, the final document should seek to address ”attitude and behavioural change,” Vitit Muntabhorn, a Thai professor of law and leading child rights expert, said in an interview. ”It should not just be about changing the laws and more information.”

There is a compelling need for a ”psychological mobilisation process,” he argued. ”It is a good starting point to end corporal punishment and other abuse of children globally.”