Children’s rights continue to be violated despite Conventions

Ms Dorothy Konadu, Programme Manager of Actionaid, has said increasing neglect of safety nets guaranteed under global declarations and continental conventions for the protection of children continue to be violated leading to high incidence of fear.

She said school children persistently suffered under corporal punishment leading to trauma, physical abuses and injuries despite protection under the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, the Convention on the rights of the child, the African Charter and the Ghana’s Constitutional guarantees.

Ms Konadu said these at a workshop for Positive Discipline for major actors in the education enterprise at Kadjebi supported by Network of Communities in Development (NOCID), a Kadjebi-based non-governmental organisation.

The one-year project expected to introduce alternatives to punishment would be piloted in Dapaa, Wawaso, Dzamlome, Ampeyo, Kukurantumi, Kosamba, Akum and Menusu.

She said in jurisdictions where these protections and safety nets were enforced children made giant strides in character uprightness and becoming more assertive through dialogue, negotiations and other alternative punishment regimes than the dehumanising ones like beating, knocking, pinching, carrying cement block, watching the sun or burning with heated objects.

She said violence against children remained pervasive in the country and Africa according to studies commissioned by the University of Education, Winneba and the African Union, which proved that children were constantly subjected to abuses in the disguised form of discipline.

Ms Konadu said child development specialists and educators around the world had attested that positive discipline was effective in teaching and instilling self-discipline in children than punishment, which inflicts pain, creates fear, kills creativity and imposes an unpleasant feeling.

Mr David Sah, Programme Coordinator of NOCID, said punishment in the school system has failed to be commensurate with the offense usually committed by children.

He said over-reliance on the cane as an instrument of punishment according to Biblical teachings of “Spare the rod, you spoil the child” principle could be re-directed to constructive model punishment regimes like detainment during playtime, writing lines or reading a particular topic or subject for test.

Mr Jacob Alibinde Asogonnde, Kadjebi District Chief Executive, commended Actionaid and NOCID for their proactive steps geared towards eliminating acts that seemed to dehumanize children in punishment regimes in the school system, pledging the Assembly’s fullest support.

He suggested that this correctional model be introduced into the curriculum of training colleges of education in order to shape attitudes and behaviours of trainee teachers to ensure a regimented approach to punishment towards reforming children, who may find themselves against agreed values.