PESHAWAR: Adina and her friends laugh and giggle as they play in a classroom during a free period. Like most nine-year-olds, and owing to childish exuberance, they are oblivious to the noise emanating from their room in a government school in Peshawar.

Unhappy with the commotion, their teacher enters the room, closing the door behind her. She then proceeds to ‘inflict’ strict discipline on the second graders — with a piece of wood.

“It was the worst day of my life,” recalls a despondent Adina. “Our teacher got angry and started beating us,” she says, describing every detail of her ordeal from the grim day.

That day, Adina went home complaining of pain, which was why her father took her to a doctor. They were told that one of her hands had been broken.

“We were crying, but no one came to stop the teacher,” she exclaims, before remembering that “everyone in the class was crying due to pain and fear”.

With tears streaming down their faces, the children attempted to run away to escape the punishment. To their dismay the door was closed.

“The unnerving incident left a negative impact on Adina,” says her father Naseem Khan, adding that his child is in a state of fear after the incident.

It was with a heavy heart and a fractured hand that Adina decided that she would not go back to the Government Girls’ Primary School, Pawakai. The ordeal had left her with little choice.

Students lack options if they want to change schools. Residents of Pawakai prefer government-run schools to private ones for their children, as public institutions tend to hire more women teachers.

This dearth of alternatives results in hundreds of children like Adina being subjected to corporal punishment. Among such students is Afshan, a 14-year-old ninth grader at a government girls’ school in Peshawar’s locality of Pakha Ghulam.

Afshan recalls what transpired when, a couple of months ago, she forgot to complete her homework. “My teacher got angry and started beating me with a piece of wood on my back, bottom and hands,” she says, her eyes filling with tears. She says that no one stood up to defend her.

Afshan’s father demanded accountability and submitted a written complaint to the district education officer. He waited several months before learning that no one had looked into the complaint. They were eventually compelled to resolve the issue through a jirga.

Deep-rooted neglect

Unlike Afshan and Adina’s fathers, some parents tend to exacerbate the issue by encouraging corporal punishment. They refuse to pay heed to research studies that outline the grave dangers of corporal punishment. Parents like Yousuf Ali often attribute children’s bad habits to television and the internet and feel physical discipline is a necessary means to keep “culture and customs intact”.

Ali, a father of three, permits teachers to physically punish his children, often resorting to similar punishment at home when they misbehave with him or his wife. “I fully allow the teachers to punish my children,” he says, trying to justify the abuse.

Mirajuddin, a teacher at a government school in Swat, claims a majority of the parents at the time of admission express a willingness to allow teachers to use physical punishment as a tool to discipline the children.

He cites “a lack of respect towards teachers, parents and elders” as an excuse for corporal punishment. Mirajuddin, who isn’t averse to using the same methods on his own children, feels it is the only option in such a situation.

Corrective measures

The Society for the Protection of the Rights of Children (Sparc) says that the situation is worsening at government schools. Although the Khyber Pakhtun­khwa government has imposed a ban on corporal punishment, the number of such cases are on the rise. Sparc registered 736 cases across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from Jan 2015 to Jan 2016.

The area manager of Sparc, Jahanzeb Khan, reveals that a majority of parents and relatives prefer not to file complaints against the teachers in cases of beating. Opting to resolve the matter through local traditions seems to be a common practice.

Khan hopes to minimise corporal punishment by training teachers and creating awareness among faculty members. Up to now they have trained more than 700 teachers in five districts, namely Peshawar, Nowshera, Mardan, Charsadda and Swabi.

The teachers’ psychological, financial and personal problems are often the reasons behind a large number of corporal punishment cases. Khan explains that a lack of checks and balances and regulations add to the growing problem.

Under the Pakistan Penal Code, any form of corporal punishment is banned, including at schools. However, a section of the same law allows ‘light’ punishment, Khan says.

“A notification has no legal cover; we need proper legislation,” Khan says, describing the provincial government’s notification that banned physical punishment as insufficient. Despite hundreds of complaints registered every year, the government has yet to take action against a single teacher.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has established a complaint cell to discourage physical punishment and abuse in schools. According to the cell, a majority of the complaints come from Abbottabad, as opposed to Tank, which registers the least.

The cell registered 102 cases of corporal punishment, including 33 against women teachers, across the province from March 24, 2016 to November 28, 2016.

According to an official of the provincial directorate of education, the unit works from 8am to 10pm daily. The on-duty official notes the name, address and the CNIC and mobile phone numbers of the complainant. The complaint is then forwarded to the relevant department or officer within 24 hours for further inquiry, explains deputy director Iftikhar Shamozai.

He says the education department takes physical punishment in schools very seriously. However, in major cases social customs become a hurdle with regard to inquiries, because at times complainants would not stand by their claims.

Regardless of training sessions from NGOs such as Sparc or any government legislation, the matter of corporal punishment needs to be addressed at the core. Communities, rather than just teachers, need to be educated on alternative forms of discipline.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2017