Children's views on physical and humiliating punishment

The following description of research into the experiences of corporal punishment by children in Lebanon is taken from the International Save the Children Alliance's global submission to the UN Study on Violence, Ending Physical and Humiliating Punishment of Children - Making it Happen, available at: http://www.rb.se/eng/Programme/Exploitationandabuse/Corporalpunishment/1415+Publications.htm)

Save the Children Sweden (SCS) has gathered and compiled children's views on corporal punishment from students in different schools in Lebanon. The following testimonies are taken from interviews with Palestinian refugee children undertaken by SCS's partner organisation, Naba'a. The children consulted were primarily those from UNRWA [UN Relief Works Agency] schools aged 9 - 14 years old who had suffered from corporal punishment at home and in school, though only their perspectives in relation to school are quoted here:

1. What happens when you misbehave at school?
   "They tell me to write my lesson over and over, sometimes I get hit."
   "They hit me with a stick or with karate moves."
   "The teacher swears at me, or hits me with a stick on the back of my hand, or presses a pencil in between my fingers."
   "The teacher presses down on me."
   "The teacher hits me with a karate move, one teacher hits me on the head with a stick."
   
   
2. What do you feel when you are hit?
   "Humiliated."
   "I feel like a joke in front of my friends."
   "My friends make fun of me."
   "Sad, insulted, worried."
   
   
3. When you are not consulted about decisions that concern you in school, what do you feel?
   "I feel like a victim."
   "I feel my opinion doesn't count."
   "I have no rights."
   "I don't count."
   "I feel imprisoned."
   "I've been badly treated."
   
   
4. How would you like to be treated when you do something wrong?
   "I prefer that they make me understand by speaking to me."
   "[They] should tell me my faults and what the right way is."
   "Show me the right way."

Reported in International Save the Children Alliance, 2005, Ending Physical and Humiliating Punishment of Children - Making it Happen: Global Submission to the UN Study on Violence against Children, Save the Children Sweden)
International Save the Children report available at: http://www.rb.se/eng/Programme/Exploitationandabuse/Corporalpunishment/1415+Publications.htm)

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