Why This Brutality Against Children?

Most of the readers of this blog will be shocked by the article below extracted from the The Citizen, a local English language newspaper.

Those who have visited us here will also be surprised. The children in our schools smile so easily. There is a general joyousness about them but life for children here is not so easy. Life is hard and it carries over into everyone’s life.

I am not sure of the conclusions reached by the people interviewed by Bernard James. Poverty is not the overall cause of all ills, even the circumstances that arise from poverty… but it is a big worry for us especially when we see it in the schools where almost all teachers are convinced of the need for corporal punishment.

This is a subject I would very much like to discuss with anyone who cares to add a comment to this blog. Is all corporal punishment bad in all circumstances? What actually constitutes brutality? Why are African children in general much more carefree than those in the West?  Does sparing the rod indeed spoil the child? Should unacceptable behavior be permitted? How can it be corrected in a culture far different from the introspective culture of the West that has been studied so well?

I would so much like to know!

Tanzania: Why This Brutality Against Children?

Extracted from: The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)

by Bernard James
23 May 2010

With mounting cases of parents around the country committing horrendous acts of cruelty against their own children, there is grave concern among psychologists, the authorities, including police and administration officials, and the society, at large.

In the recent past, there have been chilling reports of parents hacking children to death, mothers burning their own offspring’s hands to punish them for theft and not long ago, the heart-rending story of a father who colluded with the perpetrators of the witchcraft fuelled albino killings in the Lake Region to have his own son slaughtered so he could earn some blood money.

With this grim picture captured by the media, the survival of the Tanzanian child is, indeed, at stake! And experts are warning that with the biting widespread poverty, especially in the rural areas, rapid breakdown of the family unit and the erosion of traditional social values and morals, the country faces a tough test: securing its own future by ensuring the protection and wellbeing of its children.

The high rate of cases of gross abuse of the rights of the children has human rights campaigners and psychologists warning that the trend does not augur well for the country.

The delay in enacting a special children’s law has not helped matters, either. Unicef is now calling for the immediate operationalisation of the Law of the Child Act, 2009, which was passed by Parliament last November, to enhance their protection.

“Significant investment by the government and development partners will be needed to ensure that these laws are applied appropriately and fulfill their promise to protect Tanzanian children,” says Mr Andrew Brooks, the chief of child protection, Unicef Tanzania.

A lecturer at the Institute of Social Work (ISW) in Dar es Salaam, Mr Andrew Mchomvu, says that just like the notorious albino killings, the rising cases of child abuse, including murder by their own parents, is an indication of the strains on the existing social order that calls for immediate intervention.

“There is what I can describe as unbecoming social phenomena, with foster and biological parents torturing or beating their children to death or subjecting them to extreme brutality leading to permanent disability,” says Mr Mchomvu, who spoke extensively to the Sunday Citizen in an interview on the subject he has studied at length.

The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, he says, should revisit family policies and address legal loopholes to curb the injustices.

An Assistant Commissioner for Social Welfare (family, child welfare & childhood development) in the ministry, Ms Jeanne Ndyetabula, and the Legal Officer, Mr Boniface Mwabukusi, while admitting that the widespread abuse of children is of concern, are optimistic that the new law will help solve the problem.

A lawyer with the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), Ms Letitia Petro, says that up to a million children are “most vulnerable.” She says reports of child abuse across the country since January are alarming.

“We need a comprehensive strategy for the rights and legal protection of children,” she says, adding that the 2009 LHRC Human Rights Report released last month placed abuse of the rights of the child above all other kinds of violations.

Some of the cases that have recently stunned the country include the Moshi incident in which a woman suspected to be on unsound mind allegedly hacked her three children to death. Another two children were beaten to death by their parents, one for eating food that had been kept, and the other for cooking seeds set aside for planting. A teenage boy is admitted to Muhimbili National Hospital after his father speared him for coming home late and daring ask for food.

Says Mr Mchomvu: “Families, especially in the rural areas, are mired in untold hardships. Extremely depressed parents are venting their frustrations on innocent children. While national wealth is shown as growing, earnings by individuals have dwindled.”

He cites food price increases and high taxation as pushing many against the wall and as they fight for survival, they end up abusing their children.

Five years ago, the price of sugar ranged between Sh400 (Tanzanian Shillings) and Sh600 per kilogramme. Today, it goes for between Sh1,600-Sh2,000. The price of beans, a common feature on the menu for many, has shot up from Sh400 to Sh1,000-Sh1,600. (1 US$ = Sh1400 May 2010)

When the Kikwete administration came to power in 2005, a packet of maize flour cost Sh300. This has risen to between Sh1,000-Sh1,200, a nearly 400 per cent increase. A kilo of price costs between Sh1,300 and Sh1,600, from Sh500 less than five years ago. A kilo of meat cost Sh1,200 then and between Sh4,500 and Sh5,000 today. The price of a bucketful of water has increased 20 fold.

“People survive on one meal a day or skip meals altogether. In such circumstances many parents are driven to self destruction to run away from the reality that they can’t put food on the table for their own,” says Mr Mchomvu.

“As a psychologist, I’m worried that the brutality will continue unless a system, which ensures equity and caring for the poor, is enforced instead of trying to appease sufferers with mere words.”

The LHRC also sees a link between poverty and the rising parental brutality. “Children have become victims of hardships facing their breadwinners,” lawyer Petro says.

Mr Mchomvu says that even in Dar es Salaam, which has better opportunities to eke out a living, research conducted in 2007 among 100 single mothers in Kinondoni District revealed that 65 per cent of them wished they had not given birth at all.

Titled, ‘Psychological Torture and Its Influence in Personality Growth’, the study found out that the women considered bringing up children tiresome and cumbersome. “They were doing it because they did not have an alternative,” says the researcher.

Fifteen per cent of the interviewees aged 20 to the mid 30s, confessed to locking up their children as they went out to look for means of survival. Mr Mchomvu says there is a high rate of abortion in that group.

Foster parenting is yet another cause of child abuse. Studies in Ngara, Kigoma, and Biharamulo between 1996 and 2007 confirmed that up to 75 per cent of foster parents do not offer a guarantee of love and continuous growth, development or safety for orphans and destitute.

Most of the children are overworked, ridiculed, deprived of food, caned and tortured emotionally. Those who can’t stand the mistreatment run away into the streets.