Arbitrary flogging is a crime — Omojalile
Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer of a children-friendly group, Advocates for Children and Vulnerable Persons Network, ACVPN, Mr. Ebenezer Omojalile, has condemned corporal punishment on children, saying that it is a crime to beat children arbitrarily and inflict injury on them.
Omojalile stated this during a discussion on Oshodi-Isolo Community chat platform.
He said: “Corporal punishment is a crime, when it inflicts injuries on a victim. Also, corporal punishment is a crime when it causes physical and psychological injury on victims.
"In addition, it can make children become more aggressive, backward in education and have phobia for schools, which can lead to truancy.”
Speaking on the injury inflicted on the students of Arabic school in Kwara State, Omojalile said: “ACVPN condemns such irresponsible behaviour by the school headteacher. The culprit should not only be suspended, he should be duly prosecuted in the court of law. Nobody can say how many children had been punished in such a cruel way.
“Unfortunately, it is obvious the Kwara State governor does not have a preventive structure on ground, the head of quality assurance of the Ministry of Education is a representative of the Arabic school, where the crime was committed.
On the efforts of his network to ensure child's rights laws are put in place in Kwara and other states of the federation where child rights are not protected, Omojalile said: “What we are doing as an organisation is to encourage all 36 states in Nigeria to key into the Federal Ministry of Education Safe Space for children in both primary and secondary schools. We will keep on advocating for the process to be adapted and implemented”.
Explaining further on rights that must be given to children to make them grow up as responsible persons in the society, he said: "We are pushing for a complete overhauling of our educational system in terms of employing qualified teachers into the system.
“We have the Child's Right Act, the Violence Against Persons' Act 2017, Lagos State Child's Right Laws, and Local Governments bye-law on child abuse, which can be reviewed for proper implementation.
"In terms of prosecution, we have so many offenders in court and they were duly prosecuted and remanded according to the Lagos State Child's Safeguarding and Protection Policy 2016."
Omojalile advised parents and guardians saying: "Whatever we do to the children must be in their best interest, irrespective of their age and status. We should counsel them and make them see us (parents) as their friends, confidants and trusted partners. We should also apply tactics of negotiation and reward to motive them to do the right thing.”
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