94 PERCENT OF PARENTS ENDORSE CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

A survey conducted in four districts of the country by the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED), an NGO indicates that 94 percent of parents endorse corporal punishment (thus using of cane to whip a child) as a means of correcting misbehavior by students. The survey which sampled the views of 2,314 parents, students and graduates also indicates that 92 percent of students support corporal punishment while 89 percent of female graduates endorse it and similar increasing number of 64 percent of teachers says corporal punishment must be tolerated. Mr. David Nkrumah-Boateng, Monitoring and Evaluation Manager of CAMFED presented the findings of the survey in Tamale on Wednesday during a stakeholder’s forum on child protection organized by the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and supported by CAMFED. The survey conducted in October 2010 in Bongo in the Upper East, Chereponi and Nanumba South in the Northern and Mfantseman districts in the Western Regions aimed at exploring strategies with partners of how to deal with abuse facing children in school. The report said the respondents noted that it was legal for teachers to cane students when they misbehave in class while 25 percent of stakeholders overall thought having an affair with the teacher will improve academic records. It said a larger proportion of the respondents were away of the legal regimes that protected children but felt that most of the abuse cases were not reported to the law enforcing agencies. Mr. Haruna Husheini Sulemana, Northern Regional Director of NCCE called for harmonization and networking among stakeholders working for the protection of the rights of children to liquidate the challenges facing children adding that adults must be held responsible for the abuses on children. He said Government’s efforts at fighting the challenges confronting children were not yielding the desired results because of duplication of duties and functions by institutions mandated resulting in waste of state resources since targets are not met. Mr. Sulemana called on the Northern Regional Child Protection Network, a child rights advocate group to step up measures as individuals and groups to pull resources and expertise in dealing with issues affecting children. Sheikh Dr. Al-Husein Zakaria, a resource person who presented a paper on ‘working with community stakeholders to address child protection issues’ said networking among organizations with similar objectives was the best way in tackling problems confronting children. He however observed that competition for resources within members of the organization could create friction and defeat the purpose of networking and urged members of the Northern Region Child Protection Network to desist from competing against itself. Mrs. Delores Dickson, Country Director of CAMFED noted that child related problems were multi-faceted and needed a multi-dimensional and comprehensive approach in dealing with them adding that stakeholders must find local solutions in tackling such social problems.