Dear Editor,
Children need protection from predators. However, in the vast number of reports I see no inclination to finding out why people become predators in the first place. They are called “monsters and beasts” who deserve the stiffest of punishments. Will their punishment put an end to the population of “monsters and beasts”? Probably not.
Child abusers should have got over their victimisation by the time they become adults and understood what happened to them. This is not always the case. Some people never get over being whipped, caned, flogged, beaten, burned, or even raped and sodomised. Some of these children become “monsters and beasts”.
Corporal punishment has the ability to create such children. Understanding the collateral damage that is caused from child abuse is very important in the rehabilitation of the individual and society. In examining the childhood of such “monsters and beasts” one would most likely find a child that caregivers and society not only failed to protect, but intentionally abused.
So-called laws ‘with teeth’ don’t always work. They may address the worst situations but not other situations where some people are tolerating abusive environments, and all those who know are more afraid of the abusive people than of the penalities of the laws with teeth. In other situations, people are afraid of the laws with teeth as they can put the family in more hardship. When caught between a rock and a hard place, people take the law into their own hands.
Parenting education that is used as a penalty for misbehaviour is education that is too late, so parenting education and addressing reproductive health, especially in our culture, needs to start early in school since it is not always happening at home.
A M Ansari
stop1998@aol.com
Children need protection from predators. However, in the vast number of reports I see no inclination to finding out why people become predators in the first place. They are called “monsters and beasts” who deserve the stiffest of punishments. Will their punishment put an end to the population of “monsters and beasts”? Probably not.
Child abusers should have got over their victimisation by the time they become adults and understood what happened to them. This is not always the case. Some people never get over being whipped, caned, flogged, beaten, burned, or even raped and sodomised. Some of these children become “monsters and beasts”.
Corporal punishment has the ability to create such children. Understanding the collateral damage that is caused from child abuse is very important in the rehabilitation of the individual and society. In examining the childhood of such “monsters and beasts” one would most likely find a child that caregivers and society not only failed to protect, but intentionally abused.
So-called laws ‘with teeth’ don’t always work. They may address the worst situations but not other situations where some people are tolerating abusive environments, and all those who know are more afraid of the abusive people than of the penalities of the laws with teeth. In other situations, people are afraid of the laws with teeth as they can put the family in more hardship. When caught between a rock and a hard place, people take the law into their own hands.
Parenting education that is used as a penalty for misbehaviour is education that is too late, so parenting education and addressing reproductive health, especially in our culture, needs to start early in school since it is not always happening at home.
A M Ansari
stop1998@aol.com