In 2006, Pakistan made a commitment to abolish corporal punishment. During the last 11 years, a number of laws on the subject have been passed, but corporal punishment continues to be practiced. Videos showing young children being brutally beaten up and injured by teachers are aired frequently on social media, without apparent action taken by the government against the perpetrators. An Unicef research, conducted in 2004, found that 81 percentage of children in Punjab and Sindh had experienced violent disciplining in the month prior to the survey.
We cannot put an end to corporal punishment unless we abolish all acts that favour this form of punishment. For example, in Punjab, the Borstal Act, 1926, permits corporal punishment for males in borstal institution. Although the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000 prohibits corporal punishment of children in custody, it does not override other laws. This shows that the government has to take more steps to ensure that corporal punishment is not practiced anywhere in the country.
Islam Murad
Hoshab