dyton mupawaendaThe Herald, October 24, 1992
A HARARE headmaster who whipped a six-year-old girl with a metre-long hosepipe has been fined $100 (or 30 days) for common assault.
Brian Chimhau (45) pleaded not guilty to common assault, but was convicted by a Harare magistrate, Mrs Angeline Nedziwe, who imposed the fine yesterday.
Corporal punishment for girls is banned by education regulations. Mr Phillip Mandongwe, for the State, told the court that on March 4 this year, a 17-year-old teenager arrived at Moffat Primary School in Arcadia, Harare, to collect the schoolgirl.
The teenager saw the pupil’s class teacher who instructed her to take the six-year-old girl to Chimhau’s office because she had stolen some chocolates and sweets from the tuckshop.
Without consultation or consent from the girl’s guardian, Chimhau decided to administer corporal punishment by lashing the girl three times with the hosepipe on the legs. She sustained some injuries.
The State submitted that Chimhau had nine years of experience as a headmaster and that his action was “unprecedented and very deplorable”.
It seemed the punishment was motivated by “racial prejudice”, according to the State.
Chimhau, who was represented by Mrs Beatrice Mtetwa of Kantor and Immerman, argued in his defence outline that the girl and a male classmate of her age had stolen some items from the tuckshop.
Their guardians or authorised representatives “expressly or impliedly” authorised the corporal punishment.
“The punishment was reasonable chastisement in the circumstances of the case,” Chimhau had submitted, denying that he inflicted some injuries.
Mrs Mtetwa, for the defence, had argued that the education regulations were ultra vires provisions of the Constitution as they provided for discriminatory treatment of schoolchildren on the basis of sex.
Handing down judgment, the magistrate held that provisions of the education regulations altered (the common law position under which a schoolteacher or head was entitled to administer reasonable and moderate chastisement).
In the present case, the accused assaulted a girl of six. Section Four of the Education (Disciplinary Powers) Regulations of 1990 state clearly that girls are excluded from corporal punishment.
“Accused, in chastising the girl, was not complying with the regulations. Therefore, the assault perpetrated on the girl was unlawful,” said the magistrate, adding that the fact that other heads had chastised girls before and got away with it was neither here nor there.
The magistrate said the constitutionality aspect raised was the Supreme Court’s baby.
LESSONS FOR TODAY
Corporal punishment is a preferred method of disciplining children by school authorities in most countries. According to studies in 2021 corporal punishment in Africa and Central America was above 70 percent, past-year prevalence was above 60 percent in the WHO Regions of Eastern Mediterranean and South-East Asia, and past-week prevalence was above 40 percent in Africa and South-East Asia.
In Zimbabwe corporal punishment was outlawed in 2017 through a High Court ruling that declared article 60(2) (c) of the Educational Act unconstitutional.
The issue of corporal punishment has continued to divide opinion in most countries with those for it seeing it as the best way of keeping children on the straight and narrow and those against the practice arguing that its barbaric and harmful to children.
Online Reporter