Thank you all for these excellent discussions on this topic. I love the passion we have all shown and wish we can do more, not just for the child as a person, but to the society towards creating a better world for our children where they can live a life free of active and passive forms of abuse and neglect.
Thanks you, Hajime Takeuchi, for raising the topic and sustaining the tempo all through the discussion period. Thank you, Venant Mligo, for the great work you do in Tanzania; Irene Melamed on your personal experience and for the reference materials. I appreciate you, Danny D. Gotto, for the great works you do in Uganda; Amalee McCoy, for sharing Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor studies; Denis Richard, Gisele Rocha, Zsuzsanna Kovacs for the poem, Marcus Stahlhofer for the extensive work and your questions, Tony Waterston for your questions, Staffan Janson on Swedish experience, and all others.
I am sure we all have learned one thing or the other from all the discussions and posts. The truth is that our children are suffering - and really sufferings from physical, emotional and intellectual abuses. Our children are not just suffering from punitive corporal punishment, but also from other forms of abuse and neglect - including what I call over pampering. Today, childhood obesity, suicide, sexual abuse, pornography, are all on the increase. Pedophilias are everywhere! Bad things are happening to our children. Harsh economic situations, terrorism, etc are hurting our children in several ways than we can document here.
As a child advocate, I receive numerous calls from concerned persons who see one form of child abuse or the other on weekly bases. Sometimes, parents cannot afford hospital care for their sick children, children who are given to uncles and aunties for upbringing because of parental catastrophic financial status are used for street trading, thus swelling the population of children of the street and children in the street. Children still work in very dangerous situations and circumstances similar to the Chimney sweepers of the 18th century.
Yes, the Japanese ban is not yet eureka for our children. As child advocates, we need to do more. We need to build safety nets for children, advocate for quality social services and universal health coverage across the nations of the world, and ensure free education up to literacy level. Until these are done, corporal punishment will remain the least of the worries of most innocent, vulnerable and easily manipulated children.
We need to build a world that is SAFE for all children across the nations of the world. We can all start from where we are today.
Have an excellent week.
Obinna
CHIFA profile: Obinna O E Oleribe is Chief Executive Officer|E&F Management Care Centre, Abuja, Nigeria. Skype: Obinna. obinna.oleribe AT expertmanagers.org
Twitter: @OleribeO www.expertmanagers.org
