BANGLADESH: Corporal punishment widespread - UNICEF

Photo: David Swanson/IRIN

The report highlights the need for greater awareness with regard to the rights of children

DHAKA, 3 November 2009 (IRIN) - A new report by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says most children in Bangladesh are regularly exposed to physical abuse at school, at home or where they work.

The study entitled Opinions of Children of Bangladesh on Corporal Punishment involved nearly 4,000 families and was published on 8 October 2009.

“In all regards, the children of Bangladesh are in a very vulnerable position,” Mohammad Kafil Uddin, director of Bangladesh Children’s Rights Forum, an organization of 235 NGOs working in the children’s rights sector, told IRIN in Dhaka.

According to the report, 91 percent of the children surveyed faced various levels of physical abuse at school, while 74 percent were abused at home.

The report found that 87.6 percent of schools still used switches and sticks to discipline students, and that the most common forms of punishment were: hitting with a switch or stick, pinching or pulling an ear, hair or skin, and slapping.

Some 23 percent of students said they had to face different forms of corporal punishment every day. Seven percent reported injuries and bleeding resulting from the punishments administered by teachers.

The threat of corporal punishment was a major reason why children played truant or had lost interest in their studies, the report said, adding that only 75 percent of enrolled students regularly attended school.

Photo: David Swanson/IRIN

A young girl at a primary school in Dhaka. 23 percent of students said they faced various forms of corporal punishment every day

“They [teachers] beat us with wooden and steel rulers and sticks,” Ishrat Jahan Ima, a seven-year-old second year student at the Sher-E-Bangla Nagar Government Girls’ School in Dhaka, claimed, recalling how one teacher proudly showed off a broken switch bragging that he had broken it by beating a fifth-year student.

In the workplace

Although child labour is illegal in Bangladesh, the practice is prevalent, say child rights activists, and the report indicated that about 10 percent of the children had jobs.

Of these - apart from having to put up with a heavy workload, poor wages and dangerous working conditions - a quarter of them were regularly beaten; 65 percent said they were punished in one form or another in their workplaces.

In the home

At home the survey found that 99.3 percent of the children reported being verbally abused and threatened regularly by their parents. Slapping was a common form of discipline for 70 percent of the children, while 40 percent were regularly beaten or kicked.

“Physical abuse of children is a daily occurrence and this is a problem which needs a complete mindset change… The level of awareness among the people of Bangladesh regarding the rights of children is very low,” Bangladesh Children’s Rights Forum director Mohammad Kafil Uddin said.

The report also correlated the household income and education of the parents with physical punishment: Parents from poorer and less educated households were more likely to resort to corporal punishment.

Bangladesh was one of the first countries to ratify the UN International Bill of Rights for Children in the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The UNCRC states that all forms of physical and mental abuse against children must be prohibited, and a 2006 UN report recommended a target date of 2009 for the universal prohibition of corporal punishment.

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