Arnold Msipa says some schools in Zimbabwe are no longer homely or safe learning and playing assembly points as they should be, as terror strikes in schools and custodians turn violent against the children. Read on... (Pictured: Zimbabwe school children face terror in schools.)
Children no longer feel safe at schools where they spend most of their life time. Instead school children are now constantly being exposed to bashing, rape, torture and even murder.
Perpetrators of the violence range from grounds men, prefects, teachers and headmasters, who at times cover up for each other and suppress information on childrens rights violations.
Shocking reports are coming from different regions of the country. In the western Mashonaland West provincial seat of Chinhoyi, the law let loose, on bail, a teacher accused of beating up a pupil to death despite an outrage in the city.
Rapists also on the loose
In Murehwa, in the eastern Mashonaland East Region, state radio alleged a female teacher had sex with a 13-year-old school boy. The government-run Sunday Mail newspaper reported the death in prison, of a convicted serial rapist who in 2005 abused 34 girls aged between nine and 12.
James Sangarwe died mysteriously while serving 22 years. His banditry led to the closure of Macheke Government Primary School, where he had been a general hand. It emerged during his trial he raped the children with the help of a matron. In the capital, Harare, an eight-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a grounds man last December at Gwinyiro primary school in Mufakose high-density suburbs. Gerald Mapedzamombe, 36, denies the charge before Magistrate Danie Shonhiwa at the Rotten Row Court in the city.
Prosecution dilemma
The prosecutor handling the case, Joice Fusire, says it is a dilemma to lead in evidence the key witnesses she has, both minors of below nine. She says one time they say something substantial and next they shock you. She says parents get irritated when cases delay, but she cannot fast track hearings because her duty is to ensure justice for both the accused and the complainant: There is danger of jailing an innocent person… And there is also danger of letting a guilty rapist loose.
Fusire says not all kids have problems giving evidence as some are excellent witnesses. She recalls a teenager who sodomised two small boys, one of them two-and-a-half and the other five years old. The younger boy revealed the case; and in court was the most dangerous witness to the accused, who has since been jailed. The two-year-old stuck to his story in cross examination, always saying, Wakandikuwaja… Zvaihwaja… (You hurt me… It was painful…)
The court could visualise the abuse. Violence against children in schools and at home is a long time cause for concern worldwide. Yet the situation remains dire, in some cases on the rise like in Zimbabwe and other economically and politically unstable Third World nations
A new breed of bullies
The Director of Justice for Children Trust, JC Trust, an organisation of lawyers, says violence has always existed in schools, though the major problem was bullying among mostly male kids and against new comers. New comers, known with a variety of derogatory names like manyunyu, madzvombi, magede, etc, are usually beaten up at will, made to lick feet, robbed of their food and other goodies, as well as humiliated.
The bullies are now raping girls! (The situation is so bad) we need to increase sensitisation of children on all forms of ill-treatment, Petronella Nyamapfene says, without giving figures.
Nevertheless, the childrens rights lawyer says such cases are, surprisingly, reported to JC Trust from the courts and the community more than from learning institutions where they are mostly committed.
Although her group is to provide free legal services for children, its operations are limited in cases of sexual abuse. Here, the prosecutor is the lawyer of the child. JC Trusts role becomes simply to encourage the parents and child to go to court till the end.
She says parents usually become disillusioned if the suspected rapist is released on bail: They dont understand what remand means.
Her group also monitors proceedings to ensure cases are handled timely before evidence is destroyed and witnesses forget facts. The organisation is more active where a child is the accused, acting as the defence counsel; and where the child is a victim of domestic violence, the client is the party representing the child, usually the mother.
Ms Nyamapfene says JC Trust is involved in the ongoing constitution making exercise, advocating for the rights of the child to be enshrined in the supreme law; May be the state can now prioritise children. This is more so in schools, where often ruthless ill-treatment goes unchecked.
Legalised humiliation, clobbering and torture
The culprit, according to rights campaigners and commentators, is the animal called corporal punishment, which in most cases is applied wrongly and often dangerously. It is legal in Zimbabwe.
An old ministerial circular says the system is one of the most contentious issues from a legal point of view and from a human rights perspective. Yet the state allows it, providing headmasters strictly follow laid down procedures and use it only as the last resort. Critics say the provision is blatant contradiction and rejection of global laws Zimbabwe has signed, including the 1999 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Children.
They say the supposed authority of headmasters, teachers, matrons, grounds men and prefects over children is causing unimaginable trauma. The JC Trust Director says corporal punishment was once, around 1987, outlawed after a Supreme Court judgement saying the practice was inhuman and degrading, long before the domestic violence law.
But Ms Nyamapfene says a few years later the practice returned to the statutory books, despite its grave effects: If it is that dangerous, why shouldnt we get rid of it? she asks during an interview in the capital, Harare.
Section 15, Sub-section 31 of Constitutional Amendment Number 11 of 1990 says: No moderate corporal punishment inflicted … upon a person under the age of 18 by his parent or guardian or by someone (in place of the parent) … or in execution of the judgement or order of a court … shall be … in contravention of sub-section (one) on the grounds that it is inhuman and degrading.
Both the African Charter and the United Nations Convention prohibit corporal punishment, with the world body saying: The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rightscivil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.” By ratifying or acceding to it (the Convention), national governments have committed themselves to protecting and ensuring children’s rights and they have agreed to hold themselves accountable for this commitment before the international community.
States parties to the Convention are obliged to develop and undertake all actions and policies in the light of the best interests of the child.
Zimbabwe maintains a practice it condemns
The circular, by S J Chifunyise – then Secretary for Education, Sport and Culture, compares corporal punishment to a fight except in this case the pupil is not allowed to fight back.
He has to endure the agony, the pain and the deprivation of human dignity. It is an admission that the school and Head have failed to correct the child. The criticised law says …it shall be applied by the Head of the school, (who) can delegate (it) to any one of the senior teachers. If delegated… it must be carried out in the presence of the Head.
However, instead of being inflicted on the buttocks with a suitable strap, cane or smooth light switch, as prescribed, it is usually violent; and not even the girls, who the same law says should not undergo corporal punishment, are spared.
It has not been possible to get comment from the Zimbabwe education ministry or teachers representative bodies on the issue, although one headmaster who refuses to be named says it will be hard to maintain discipline in schools without corporal punishment.
Editors note: This story was compiled with the assistance of the Humanitarian Information Facilitation Centre.
Post published in: News