When bitter parents batter their children to feel better

While the world is still grappling with child-rape cases that have besieged Nigeria, there seems to be a new face to child abuse in the country – parents rising against their children in assault and battery. In some cases, even death. As if the difficult life most of these children lead is not enough, parents seem to unleash their anger and frustrations on their children.
As Deutsche Welle succinctly puts it, “African children often have a tough life. They are more likely to die before the age of five than children on any other continent. They sometimes live in areas afflicted by violence and insecurity. Besides, they are less likely to get a good education than their contemporaries in Asia, America or Europe,” yet, cases of serious injury infliction has been on the increase in the country.
According to the United Nations Children Funds (UNICEF), while many children in Africa are able to grow, learn and thrive as part of loving families and communities, others suffer due to issues like poverty, conflict, natural disasters, and harmful practices such as early marriage. “Many children in Africa are affected by different types of abuse, including economic and sexual exploitation, gender discrimination in education, and their involvement in armed conflict,” it continued.
The nation, on Sunday, January 20, woke up to an unprecedented case of child assault captioned under the headline “How a prophet battered son for going to church” in our sister newspaper, Sunday Tribune. That the culprit was a cleric, who is in charge of shepherding a flock, seemed not to have meant anything to him, as he ordered the son to roll on hot ashes.
The battered young boy’s offence was going to a church that did not belong to the father on that fateful day.
The boy had, on Monday, December 31, 2012 gone to a church to usher in the New Year against his father’s instructions. In annoyance, the prophet had punished the child for disobedience by lashing him strokes of the cane. It was gathered that efforts by the church members failed as the father kept beating his son. The boy, who recounted the unpleasant experience, told the police that his father, in company with his stepmother and her son beat him mercilessly. “When we got home, my dad and his wife (the stepmother) and her son descended on me. They tied my hands with a rope and started beating me mercilessly. After beating me, my stepmother locked me and my father inside and took the key away. Then my dad continued to beat me and when he was tired, he ordered that I should be rolling on ashes.”
In his defence, the father said the boy had been running away from home for years. He said he decided to punish the son for the tension and anxiety he went through, and the problems he encountered while looking for the missing child he had never filed a missing person report with the police about. He denied asking the boy to roll over hot ashes.
A mother in Osun State on January 10 this year threw her three-month-old baby into a river in order to register her grievance with her husband. The incidence led to the death of the baby. The cause of death was drowning.
A father was last week Monday sentenced to four years imprisonment for beating his 11-year-old son to death. The incidence occurred in September 2009 in Ikeja, Lagos. The 37-year-old father had beaten his son to death with a kitchen spatula for refusing to sleep at home the previous day.
As the cases of parents physically abusing their children rise, another incidence was reported last Tuesday in which a principal inflicted injury on his son over West African Examination Council (WAEC) approval letter. The school principal was said to have used electric iron to inflict serious injury on his 10-year-old son who is currently lying critically ill at the State Specialist Hospital in Lokoja, Kogi State. The child’s offence was that he destroyed a letter of approval from the WAEC which authorised his father’s school as a centre for WAEC examinations. The father said the son’s refusal to admit to the offence “made me to threaten him with the iron which on a second thought, I pressed on him.”
The case of child assault and battery has been on the rise in recent times. In the United States of America, where child beating is a crime, the Department of Health and Human Services estimates that state and local authorities investigated 3.7 million cases of suspected child abuse in 2008. Child abuse is not only physical violence, it also includes emotional abuse and neglect, all of which leave lasting scars because children grow up in a state of fear and without the clear boundaries they need for healthy psychological and social development, according to HelpGuide.org.
While it is a normal practice in the African culture, especially Nigeria to beat children in efforts to correct, guide and discipline in love, the case of beating with the intent to harm, maim or kill has become worrisome.
Although child advocates frown upon beatings, many parents in Nigeria take the Biblical injunction to train the child in the way they should go and when they grow up they won’t depart from it as “sparing the rod would spoil the child” seriously.”
The rationale behind child beatings in Nigeria is to serve as a reminder for a disciplined child not to repeat such offences he was being disciplined for, according to some parents Nigerian Tribune interviewed. They, however, frowned upon excessive beatings, arguing that the purpose of the discipline would eventually be lost on the child, in the instance of excessive beating.
There is though a fine line between using beating as a form of correction and unleashing frustration, which experts say contravenes the child rights acts.
They may have drawn inspiration from Child Right Act of Nigeria, which stipulates that children should be protected from physical or moral danger.
Some children have, however, expressed their anger and betrayal over what some of them said was their parents’ “disregard for our basic rights to be respected and nurtured.” A teenager, who craves anonymity, while explaining herself, said “our parents hardly have time for us. Yes, I understand the economic situation in the country, but I also think my parents should take care of their children first. Imagine, most times, our parents hardly have time to teach us what is right or wrong, yet, they expect us to know these things. And when we display our lack thereof, they beat us mercilessly. Sometimes I wonder if they respect us at all. I mean, shouldn’t the children also be respected?”
But a father, Mr Adebayo Adewole, said: “beatings should be a last resort when dealing with children. I cannot understand why parents would beat their children with so much hate. I mean, they are supposed to love and nurture them unconditionally. These children are gifts from God and as such should be cherished and taken care of, and not abused.”
In defining the line between correction and abuse, which in most cases is quite easy to cross over, Dr Peters Bamidele, a clinical psychologist in Ibadan, Oyo State, said often times, when children are beaten vindictively, out of anger or wit