The law prohibiting corporal punishment: A progressive waste of paper
Amanda Khoza, Michael Dorfling, Hombakazi Denge, and Eddith Ngcobo talking about their corporal punishment experiences in Eina
Having gone through corporal punishment personally, I have always been interested in why teachers get away with it so easily. My dad is an attorney, and he once told me that the injustices that happened to him by his teachers at school contributed to his decision to study law. My other university major was Legal Theory, and I guess that was part of the reason I decided to study it too.
To be clear, corporal punishment has been outlawed since 1996. This came in the form of a very progressive piece of legislation after the introduction of the Constitution, which protects our human rights. The prohibition of corporal punishment protects the right to human dignity, freedom of security of person, and protection from maltreatment, neglect, abuse or degradation.
South African Schools Act, 1996
Corporal punishment was outlawed in terms of the South African Schools Act. Section 10 of the act provides:
“Prohibition of corporal punishment
1) No person may administer corporal punishment at a school to a learner
2) Any person who contravenes subsection (1) is guilty of an offense and is liable on conviction to a sentence which could be imposed for assault”
Perpetrators of corporal punishment can in fact get up to 10 years in prison if successfully convicted for assault with the intention to commit grievous bodily harm on a child under the age of 16.
The prohibition of corporal punishment was challenged in the Constitutional Court in 2000 in the case of Christian Education South Africa v Minister of Education. It was argued that the prohibition violated the rights of parents who, in line with their religious convictions, had consented to its use.
The court said that “the deliberate infliction of pain with a cane on a tender part of the body as well as the institutional nature of the procedure involved an element of cruelty in the system that sanction[ed] it”. The court went further to state that the child is “treated as an object and not a human being”.
So the legislation and the courts are clear: YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO HIT SCHOOL KIDS.
But in Eina we have four instances where corporal punishment has happened, each long after 1996. In fact, a survey done by the Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention (CJCP) found that 49.8% of South African school children suffer corporal punishment. Why is this the case? And, more importantly, what can we do to prevent it since the law seems to be widely regarded as a guideline and not a rule?
CJCP survey findings about corporal punishment in South African Schools. This graph represents the percentage of pupils who experience it, by province
Of course I am not an expert, and I do not claim to have the answers. There are many sources of information that may provide a deeper understanding as to why it still happens and what more we could do to further prevent it from happening. But we are merely filmmakers, and we have done our part in spreading awareness about an issue that is often swept under the carpet.
Only time will tell whether our country's decision makers will finally take this issue more seriously. Indeed something more must be done - a shift in attitude perhaps - because the law is clearly not ridding us of this social evil. It will be interesting to see whether our voices will be heard, or if we are just creating noise pollution to accompany the waste of paper that is the law regarding corporal punishment.
Real life footage of a teacher beating students