A GROUP of children representing a number of Arab countries, has denounced school and community violence, something they are sometimes exposed to. They stressed that teachers don't gain the respect of their pupils by using violence against them. This came during a round table attended by Minister of Family and Population Mushira Khattab and organised by the Third Arab Civil Society Forum, which was recently held in Cairo. The forum, which was attended by Marha Santos, UN special representative responsible for combating violence against children, as well as many children from Arab countries, tackled children's rights and taking them into account when taking decisions and drawing up policies. Minister Khattab expressed her support for what the children had to say about violence in schools and elsewhere. She stressed the necessity of safeguarding their rights, especially in military conflicts during which children are exposed to violations such as harassment, rape and human trafficking. Santos, who is committed to making violence against children a top priority on the UN global agenda, adds that governments need mechanisms to protect children against violence. Meanwhile, Minister of Education Ahmed Zaki Badr has called for beating pupils who cause trouble in order to restore the teachers' prestige. Badr recently visited Al-Tabari School in Heliopolis, where a teacher broke the arm of one of his nine-yearpupils, Seif Ahmed. The teacher did this, although he knew that the pupil was suffering from hepatitis. The Minister has ordered an investigation into the incident. The Minister's visit to the school in the wake of this violent incident was highlighted by the media, because Badr has been calling for corporal punishment to be re-introduced in schools. According to a source at the school, the headmaster claimed to the Minister that the teacher had done nothing wrong to the pupil. However, Somaya Abdel-Rahman, the pupil's mother, told Al Shorouq daily newspaper that the teacher, who beat her child had threatened her. Meanwhile, it is thought that the headmaster told the children that they must pretend they never saw the suspected teacher on the day he attacked the boy. In related news, a citizen called Adel Khattab and his wife protested at the headquarters of the Ministry of Education against a decision taken by the headmaster of the school where their three children are studying, to have them transferred to three different schools. The headmaster did this because he was angry of the children's father for lodging a complaint against the principal and one of teachers for mistreating the three children as they refused to take private tutorial. The father of a pupil at a school in Shebeen el-Qanater, el-Qalubia Governorate, complained about a teacher who hit his son over the head with a chair, because he was chatting with another pupil. “Such violence breeds violence,“ said Minister Khattab during the round table, which was attended by a pupil called Mohamed Abde -Qader from Libya, who noted that violence is pushing children to run away from school. Mohamed Fikri from Egypt said that children normally accept violence from their parents, but sometimes not from the teachers.
