Child abuse a troubling trend

Yesterday, we carried a front page report of the arrest by the Manhyia Divisional Police Command of a 26-year-old national service person for physically assaulting his three-year-old son for damaging his (suspect’s) mobile phone and also wetting his bed.

The young father is alleged to have used a cable and a cane to whip the child, causing injuries to his head and resulting in a badly bruised back.

Although the young man is currently on bail, having been sent to court, while the child is responding to treatment at the Manhyia Hospital, we think this is a depressing piece of news which cannot be swept under the carpet.

Every child has a right, and as the future assets of any nation, children must be protected and supported to be good citizens to offer their best to the national development effort.

That is why we would like to enjoin the police command to quicken investigations, get to the bottom of this matter and work to ensure that justice is done expeditiously.

Clearly, what happened at Manhyia in the Ashanti Region cannot be considered normal behaviour, and putting the lives of children in harm’s way, all in the name of correction, is definitely not the way to go and cannot be encouraged under the current democratic dispensation.

It is obvious that the 26-year-old father, per the reports, had acted irresponsibly, inhumanely and inflicted assault on his own son, notwithstanding the issue at hand. What he is reported to have done is so troubling.

More troubling is the fact that similar situations persist and happen across the country but go unreported.

Across the country, there are regular occurrences of physical, emotional and verbal abuse and violence. A UNICEF Child Protection baseline research report indicates that when children were asked about their experiences of physical discipline, over 57 per cent of respondents (aged 14-17 years) said they were beaten at home “all the time” or “sometimes”, while 34 per cent confirmed being beaten in school by their teachers.

That also appeared to be the case for both girls and boys in rural and urban areas.

Parenting, in our view, is not about beating and assaulting children, since there are better ways of disciplining a child beyond abuse.

In this day and age, we must rather endeavour to focus more on education and understanding our children by learning how they behave and what they can do at different ages. We must also have realistic expectations and be reasonable if our children fall short of those expectations.

Indeed, we must get control of ourselves before attempting to discipline our children, and endeavour to make our homes a violence-free environment.

If we want our society to do well, it must start from home. It is, therefore, important that we bring back the value system in the home.

The police must, as a matter of priority, quickly step in, investigate all reported matters of child abuse and allow the law to take its rightful course for justice to prevail.

We also want to call on the Gender Ministry and faith-based organisations to come on board to support efforts to deal with child abuse in the country.

Today, our educational system is challenged, meaning that our children who are at home will be faced with lot more challenges. Care must, therefore, be taken to make sure that they are not abused during this difficult period when they do not know when they will go back to school.

The Biblical admonition ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ does not mean we should punish children to the level of harming them. It behoves parents and other stakeholders to help nurture children. Caning and assault are surely not the best way to reprimand a child. This is simply because the cost of child abuse is enormous and cannot easily be managed.