End to corporal punishment urged

LAHORE - Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Children (SPARC) organised a consultation seminar on elimination of corporal punishment from educational institutions at a local hotel here on Wednesday.
The SPARC monitoring of cases from print media shows that around 29 cases of corporal punishment have been reported in print media from January to August 2011.
A slight increase of cases has been observed by monitoring of cases through print media. However, in few cases, severity of cases as leading to the death of the child has also been observed in Rawalpindi school due to corporal punishment. Majority of these cases reported were from schools and madrassas. However, the cases of corporal punishment in home, alternative care settings and workplaces are not reported as such, because they do not get highlighted for the media coverage. A study conducted by Plan Pakistan in the Punjab found a prevalence rate of 89 percent, with corporal punishment being widely used in both rural and urban settings. The dropout rate is one of the highest in the world, at 50 percent during the first five years of education. A study by UNICEF (2007) reported that 74 pc 28 pc children (girls/boys) reported being beaten as a disciplinary measure at home.