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Prof. Harendra de Silva, Professor of Paediatrics at the Faculty of Medicine, Ragama and Chairman of the National Child Protection Authority Chief Guest at the Annual Prize Giving of S. Thomas' Preparatory School, Kollupitiya dwelt at length on the different aspects that have contributed towards the entrenchment of violence in our society with special mention of violence perpetrated on children beginning at home and then at school. Headmaster N.Y. Casie Chetty on taking office in 1995 banned corporal punishment at STPS. Widespread pessimism expressed in almost all quarters at that time has now given way to recognition of the merit of that move. Prof. Harendra de Silva....

I shall speak to you today very briefly on the society that we live in as well as how violence affects all of us including children, we know that Sri Lanka as a society is unstable. Do we know what is going to happen tomorrow? Do we know what is going to happen to our children's education? Are they going to enter University? Have you got to send them abroad? Or are they going to get jobs? Do we know what is going to happen to us tomorrow in terms of our jobs, in terms of stability, in terms of survival? A few months ago we had a problem in terms of the war. We didn't know whether we are going to survive tomorrow.

Now why are we so unstable as a society? I think it is very important for us to understand that what is most important in a society is the economic stability of a country. In a country like Japan there is no political stability but they are economically stable and therefore they are, the people are quite confident that tomorrow would still be theirs, including children.

And what is the next step in terms of stability? The next step is political stability which also rests on economic stability. And when we are unstable both politically as well as economically, the society becomes unstable and the society gets fragmented because of this instability. And the reflections of this societal instability is directed against the family units. When society is unstable the family is unstable.

When families are unstable, individual become unstable. So in this sort of society, which is unstable, both as a society as well as individuals how do we make ourselves stable? The way we make ourselves is, if we have money we are stable or at least we feel we are stable. If we have power we feel we are stable. And it is also important to realize that money and power are both inter-related. If you have money you have power, if you have power you have money. But it is not just that. Not just money and power but then it filters down to another stage, which is something we generally don't talk about. And what is that?

When it comes to power, another facet of power, or one fact of power is violence. Violence in society, violence in the political arena, violence in schools, violence in homes and so on. So power is directly related to violence.

On the other hand money is also related to another aspect, which is corruption. And in an unstable society corruption is rampant because we want to stabilize ourselves as individuals therefore if we cannot get money in some way or another, doctors do private practice to earn extra money. Others who can't earn money like that would tend to become corrupt. And of course corruption and violence, corruption and power, corruption and money - all these are inter-related. And that is the scene that is set in Sri Lanka or in any developing country.

Now what happens when we have power and violence and corruption in our society for a long time? We generally tend to, after a while, we tend to justify the violence. How do we do that? You hit me, I hit you. That's justification. It doesn't happen only at home between two siblings - you hit me I hit you! It doesn't happen only in schools. But it also happens at the level of the Parliament. So I think that justification is then not only is their justification of violence, there is legitimization of violence.

The best example of legitimization of violence is the war. You shoot us we shoot you, you destroy us we destroy you. That is legitimization. Or in a school corporal punishment is also a form of legitimization. Take the 1924 education ministry directive it says you can hit a child and that is legitimizing corporal punishment. That is violence.

And then after awhile with all this we change our Norms. At the same time, these norms and the justification increases the threshold for tolerance of violence. If you see somebody acting very violently, you would protest, you will be angry about it. But if it is going on for a long time and your norms are set at a different level, you would not react unless may be it is a murder. And if it goes on for still longer you would not react to murder. We saw a time when we saw dead bodies on the road. People racted in a way, some people did not. Just another body. And so we change the threshold of tolerance and that is how the violence perpetuates itself.

Now there are other factors that affect violence in society. The war, I mentioned. The war legitimizes violence, we see that. And of course the violence in the war is reflected directly into the society. We know that the deserters on one hand directly affects societal violence. You don't have to have deserters. What is shown on television, what is projected as heroic deeds. Can you think of any area or anywhere where somebody is labelled a hero, who is not violent! Or who has not been violent. So the general norms in society changes or changes in such a way that only a person who has been violent in a way, may be for a sake or for a purpose, only that person becomes a hero. We don't find heroes who are fighting for peace. Are they called heroes? No. They are not patriots, they are not called patriots.

So our norms are different. And then we have the media. We have to realize that children, especially in the early teens are affected in many ways when they watch these violent episodes in films. And that's a crucial age where children's minds are affected by the media - violence. But apart from that, what is most amazing is again the justification of violence on the media, on television or in the films.

Then we can talk about another aspect, which affects violence in society. And that is the alcohol and drug abuse. There is, there is no doubt increase of violence with alcohol and drugs. However that should not be a justification. Very often what happens is, somebody is drunk and beats his wife and the next morning he is very meek, timidly apologizes to the wife and says 'I'm sorry, I was drunk'. No. That is not the reason. He is a violent person and it just gives him the excuse to be violent when he is drunk. It just removes some of his inhibitions that brings his true self out to become violent but of course alcohol and drugs precipitate this type of action by people, especially men.

So whether it be societal violence or the influence of the war or the media, drugs and alcohol or domestic violence, the Ultimate target of violence is the child. Because the child cannot react, child cannot protest. The violence against the child is justified. We want to make you a good man, a good boy, a good girl and so on. Very often parents hit their kids when they are angry. They get very angry about something. Just being noisy, shouting, an accident of dropping a cup or a plate, just an accident but because we get angry we beat them.

And the threshold to get angry is made lower when you are having a problem in office - you have had a fight with the boss, not got the promotion that you wanted. You have too much work and you are stressed out and that lowers the threshold for violence and then very quickly the slightest thing makes you angry.

Again, who is the target? It is the kid! What happens then? You hit your kid. You are angry and you hit your kid and then within minutes you are sorry, oh! What did I do? And then you have to try to settle things and then what we do is we given him a kiss, we given him some chocolates, give a toy and so on. But what is the message you are giving that child? You are angry, you hit the child, the child is hurt, crying. Then the child is rewarded for being naughty!

So I think that is the wrong attitude. And when you get angry and you hit a child, often the reaction makes the child naughtier and he is sort of going to be doing wrong things all the time because he is ultimately going to get rewarded so it gives the wrong messages to children very often. Just a few points as to why we should not hit children.

The first, the most fundamental thing, is that we have to realize that children are also human beings. We have human rights, why don't the children have human rights? They should have human rights. If for eg.someone in an office has stolen a million rupees - does the boss take the kid on to the stage and give him 2/3 slaps? No. the usual process of the legal proceedings will take place. But we have a right to be protected as human beings, as adults, to be protected from violence. Whether it be in office or anywhere else.

However a child who talks or refuses to give some information to a teacher - that was something we found recently - he is taken out during the interval and is hit all over including - some of them even have injuries. Doesn't that child have human rights? No Those are the norms that have been set in society that children don't have rights, they don't have human rights, they are not human. That is wrong. So we have to realize that children are also human and that they should not be hit and that is a fundamental reason why they should not be hit.

Then the next is, we all of us agree that child abuse, physical abuse is bad. To cause injury, if you break a bone in a child, if you burn a child, that is bad. However, if you consider the effects of this severe physical abuse, the injury itself is temporary, it goes off. The wounds heal, the bones heal, everything heals. But what is bad there is the mental agony that the child has suffered during that process. And therefore the long standing effect on a child in child abuse is the mental effects or the psychological effects. So in corporal punishment although you may not end up with physical injuries, still the component of the mental agony, the mental abuse remains. So there is something parallel and that is another reason why you should not hit children.

And if you take children who experience trauma, where trauma and violence is justified and is made a norm, those children tend to be violent children. They have problems with peers, they are beaten at home, they fight or bully other children in school and they get in to fights. And not only that, there is an increased tendency to juvenile delinquency as they used to call it - juvenile offenders in children who have experienced trauma, experienced violence, including corporal punishment. On the other hand, children who have experienced violence also tend to be violent adults.

They tend to become violent in their adulthood. For the slightest thing they start a fight. It is also related to domestic violence. And they hit their wives and also hit and abuse their children. There is a higher tendency to do that if you are beaten as a child. And that is yet another reason why you should not hit your children.

There is also new evidence that there is increased incidents for adults who have experienced violence as children to be sexual perpetrators. So that is new evidence. Now one of the excuses that we often hear - I am sure a lot of you in this audience will be thinking - 'Oh! I got hit as a kid, nothing happened to me, so why shouldn't I hit my kid?'

On the one hand how do you know that you would have been better off - those people who have got hit as kids. We may have achieved more, we can't say that. All right that is an argument. But I think the best argument is - everybody agrees that smoking is bad. Everybody agrees that smoking causes cancer. But does it cause cancer in every man who smokes? No! There is only a higher risk of getting cancer, not in every person. So similarly, if you are beaten, not everybody may suffer in the same way. But a majority, a certain amount, probably about 1/3rd of the children would be affected by that beating. May be 2/3rds are not that badly affected.

I am not saying 'not affected' but not badly affected. On the other hand, I think, this is a message to the kids, is that; not hitting you, not hitting children does not mean you should not be disciplined. I think discipline is a very important aspect of bringing up children. And there again I think what is important is to get children to learn self-discipline. And how do you discipline - I think it is beyond the scope of this lecture - I think we have to learn the skills of disciplining children without the violence, without the emotional abuse of children without denigrating children. You may not hit a kid but you might say 'you are terrible' and so on. That is bad. That affects the mind of that child.

So I think it is very important that we learn the skills that would promote us to bring up our children to learn self-discipline. At the same time, although when we talk about the rights of children - of course children have rights - children have the right to an education. But children also have responsibility. Although they have the right to an education, they also have the responsibility of learning, trying to learn and also respecting your teachers. That is your responsibility. It is not only just a right.

One of the problems when you talk about rights is that almost all other rights like human rights and trade union rights and so on are often associated with violence. And we perceive the world rights with violence and that is why we as adults are really scared of child rights. You don't have to be scared. It is not something that is against parents or teachers. That is important. Child rights is something where we have that to protect the children. That is our responsibility. If we know their rights we can protect our children. And children should know their rights to protect themselves. It is nothing against authority, it is nothing against parents, nothing against teachers, I think that is important.

And that is why we need to teach children about their responsibilities. You have a right to health, you also have the responsibility of looking after your health and so on. You have the right to be respected in terms of your ethnic identity, your religious identity and so on. At the same time you have the responsibility of respecting other religions, of respecting other ethnic groups and so on. That is how it should go.

Finally, I think I must congratulate St. Thomas' Prep., especially Mr. Casie Chetty, who has done a great service in removing corporal punishment from this school. And I think if we take on record, this is the first school that has officially denounced corporal punishment, has stopped corporal punishment within the school. And everybody, the teachers, of course the Principal, parents, students, old boys, should be proud that you have a violence-free environment in this school. Of course you might have a few provocations here and there from time to time, but we must learn ways of non-violent methods of conflict resolution.

We must be able to resolve a conflict without violence. And that is important and I think removal of corporal punishment is the first step.

So, on one hand while congratulating the school I must say that Mr. Casie Chetty has been one of the few, or may be the only person in a way, who has supported in a big way for my on campaign on Violence against children.

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