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Katherine Campbell
Iganga, Uganda
Women Alliance and Children Affairs (WAACHA)

Caning is a form of corporal punishment involving a determined number of strokes, lashes or hits from a cane most commonly on someone’s buttocks, back, or hands. In Uganda, caning lashes are often administered on the back, and with a thick stick.

It is illegal to cane students in Uganda. On September 9, 1998, the Ugandan government officially forbade the use of corporal punishment in schools and colleges. Yet, on June 10, 2013, a nine-year old boy, Yowana Yakubu was caned to death at his primary school in Iganga district, where I live.

Read more about this at http://mobile.monitor.co.ug/News/Pupil-dies-after-caning/-/691252/1879838/-/format/xhtml/-/dhjyfrz/-/index.html.

You might question how a law is continuously and defiantly violated fifteen years after being introduced into Ugandan legislation. Where is the disconnect? Implementation and enforcement.

Police officers, the authority one might rely on to enforce the ban on corporal punishment, can actually more commonly be found caning youth themselves. Additionally in June, students in a secondary school here in the district were striking against their school’s policies. The solution was to bring in police who caned students and chased them away from school.

Caning was outlawed in Uganda in 1998 for fairly obvious reasons. The practice of corporal punishment, particularly the corporal punishment of students, starting at the nursery level, is inhumane and in direct violation of international human rights. The Convention on the Rights of the Child—adopted, signed and ratified in 1989—contains many articles that support the outlawing of caning in an educational environment.

Of particular importance are Articles 7, 19, and 28. Article 19 states, “States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child,” (CRC, Art. 19, 1). How can students be educated to recognize and fend off violence and abuse elsewhere in an environment where they are learning in fear of abuse? A child has the inherent right to feel safe where he or she is receiving his or her education.

Section 2 of Article 28, which recognizes the right of the child to education, asserts, “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that school discipline is administered in a manner consistent with the child’s human dignity and in conformity with the present Convention,” (CRC, Art. 28, 3). Corporal punishment violates both provisions provided in the CRC on methods of discipline in educational institutions. Caning disregards a child’s human dignity by exposing the child to violence. Furthermore, it is in direct violation with other articles of the CRC, such as the protection of children from violence and abuse. Finally, Article 7 declares the child’s right to life obligating States to ensure the maximum possible survival and development of the child. As seen in the case of Yowana Yakubu, the corporal punishment of caning in schools can be lethal. Therefore, States have an obligation to strictly forbid this practice.

Still, in Uganda, recognizing the obligation and need to take action, thus passing the proper legislation, has not translated into the protection of the Ugandan child. This is a failure in implementation and enforcement on behalf of the government and authority figures, but it is also a failure on behalf of the adult population of Uganda. Since arriving here, I have come to realize this is a cultural issue, like so many human rights issues are. Many of the Ugandans I have spoken to about caning, highly educated Ugandans, mind you, are fervent supporters of corporal punishment in schools. Why? Because being caned has “made them who they are today.”

I interviewed an array of people living in Uganda on the corporal punishment of caning in educational institutions. Here are a few tidbits from those interviews. Most names have been changed for privacy reasons.

Ronald, a 25-year-old Ugandan university student currently interning at Uganda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “Trust me, if I was not caned when I was growing up, I would be a menace to society. Adolescents learn from a good beating.”

Laura, a 29-year-old Ugandan professional, working for Uganda’s Ministry of Health: “Corporal punishment is necessary. Kids here, they aren’t like kids where you’re from. They don’t have toys, or things/privledges you can ‘take away’ from them. Tell a Ugandan kid to go sit in a corner for ‘time out’ and in five minutes you’ll look over to find them having a blast, playing with themselves and talking to their imaginary friends—all they have is their imaginations, and you can’t take that away. Now, caning—they understand that punishment.”

Erica, a 35-year-old Ugandan secondary school teacher: “It is too late for these students. All they know is caning. They just won’t respond to other forms of discipline.”

Noah, my supervisor, aged 36, and also a secondary school teacher: “I used to cane my students. I thought it was okay. But I have seen my error, and I will never cane my students again. But other teachers, most of them, they are impossible to convince. They see caning as the only what? The only solution.”

Mark, an American 27-year-old living in Uganda, and teaching in a primary school: “I fervently disagree with caning students. Before I came to Uganda, I was a teacher in the US, where obviously caning was not an option. So I am familiar with other successful methods of discipline. But teachers here, they don’t have that training and they become stuck in their ways. I just keep trying to illustrate for them that like them, I also turned out pretty well, BUT I was never once in my life hit, caned, or disciplined with corporal punishment.”

The secondary school I teach at canes their students illegally in a very official way. They have a written out list of all the students who need to be caned, and how many strokes they “deserve,” which hangs in the disciplinary office. I asked one of the teachers I am closest with at school, who I know canes her students, a few questions about caning at the school. She told me teachers are permitted to cane their students during class for small offenses, it is only for extreme offenses that students are turned over to the disciplinary office, where they will be written up on the list for their needed caning. This explained why I often see my fellow teachers entering and exiting their classrooms with a long stick in hand. This teacher also told me that sometimes parents of students come to the school and request that their children be caned.

I was not able to decipher whether they came with complaints of misbehavior occurring in the home, or if, without any observation, they assumed their child was not an exemplary student, thus worthy of being caned. In any case, the school will cane students if their parent makes such a special request. But fear not, this teacher concluded by offering me some “comforting” information, they can never exceed more than four strokes at once… If you read the attached article on Yowana Yakubu, you know he died after only one stroke.

Katherine Campbell
Iganga, Uganda
Women Alliance and Children Affairs (WAACHA)

Recently, I took on an unexpected project: re-usable menstrual pads, or RUMPs as we call them. Sophie, my host here in Iganga and a Peace Corps volunteer, took over the project from two previous volunteers who were completing their service. She asked me if I was interested in participating, and because it somehow falls into Reproductive Health, I agreed.

A re-usable menstrual pad is just what it sounds like: a menstrual pad that can be used over and over again, (when thoroughly washed after each use). This is a concept that had never actually occurred to me prior to being asked to work with them. At first, I was, admittedly, hesitant to make a commitment to advocating for RUMPs. For many reasons, they did not appeal to me—I wrote them off as something dirty and gross. Yet, when I finally embraced the project, made my own RUMP, and started interacting with female students and teachers about RUMPs, I realized the significant difference RUMPs could make in these women’s lives. We went into a secondary school (US equivalent high school) on Wednesday and taught our first RUMPs workshop. The response was overwhelmingly positive. The students were excited by the prospect of an affordable option that would prevent their menstrual periods from keeping them out of class; even teachers told us they were going to stop buying sanitary napkins seeing it as an unnecessary expense.

We provided the materials to make two RUMPs to the female teachers for free, and trained them on how to make the RUMPs a week before our all school event. We did this in hopes that they would be incentivized to help us when we were teaching the female students how to make their RUMPs…

Only one showed up on the day of. We charged the female students 300 shillings to get a kit with enough material to make two RUMPs. This is equivalent to 12¢ in the US, and the actual price of all the materials is 1,600 shillings, but we were told charging any more than 300 would be too much. One RUMP, when washed and cared for properly can be re-used for two years.

Out of the 91 students who bought RUMP kits from us, 38 students listed their monthly cost for sanitary napkins after indicating on surveys that they most commonly used sanitary napkins when they had their periods. The average monthly cost was 4,000 shillings. This is equivalent to $1.54. So what’s the big deal? In Uganda, $1.54 cents is a lot of money! Yesterday, I went to the market. For 4,000 shillings I bought 1 kilo of potatoes, a bundle of cilantro, ½ kilo of carrots, 6 leaves of spinach, and 2 cucumbers. Yet, this is still only contextualized for you in a “Mzungu” fashion. For a Ugandan woman, 4,000 shillings could feed her large family (8-12 people) for an entire day. This means that too often, women opt to not buy sanitary napkins because they can’t afford to subtract from their family’s meal budget. Instead they use rags, cloth, leaves, or just literally any material they can find. This is both unhygienic and prohibits a woman from carrying out her usual daily activities.

Ironically, this morning I watched a TED talk that discusses this exact issue. It’s brilliant, relevant, and hilarious! Check it out:

What do you think? Is access to necessary sanitary items, such as sanitary napkins for a woman’s menstrual period, a human rights issue?

Katherine Campbell
Iganga, Uganda
Women Alliance and Children Affairs (WAACHA)

With the clock ticking, and the countdown on, let me tell you about my summer plans:

As a Gallatin Global Fellow in Human Rights, I am aiming to develop a comprehensive sex education curriculum to implement with a local NGO, Women’s Alliance and Children’s Association, (WAACHA), in Iganga, Uganda. From January 2013, up until my departure for Uganda on May 23, I have been and will continue to work on an effective and comprehensive sex education applicable to all the integrated members of the WAACHA community, and more broadly within Iganga. This summer I will spend ten weeks in Iganga, working with WAACHA to implement this curriculum as a sustainable education program by training other educators to teach this curriculum.

Sex education is fundamental to human development. Sex is a powerful tool. I have found sex to have great power in our world, fundamentally because it is an act that requires consent, without which it becomes an act of power and submission; sex in the form of rape is used as a weapon of degradation and control, violating human rights and inhibiting peaceful relations. It can be a powerful exchange of love and trust through consensual choices to engage in it, or it can be a tool for destruction. I believe sex education is one of the most influential lessons one person can give to another in helping him/her shape his/her own future because knowledge is power. Education on sex and sexual health allow individuals to take control of his/her sex life, and to be proactive about his/her sexual health by providing the knowledge and skills needed to make independent decisions as they relate to sex and health. Education on sex and sexual health empowers individuals to be autonomous beings.

Furthermore, human sexuality is a large component of human personality, so much so that a persons’ sexuality can impact a persons day-to-day interactions with others.

International law asserts and upholds the human right to comprehensive sex education. Several international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, (ICESCR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, (ICCPR), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, (CRC), assert this governmental obligation.

The right to sex education is also expressed in inexplicit terms in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, (UNUDHR).
The right to comprehensive sex education probably derives its greatest legitimacy as a human right through the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and specifically through articles 3, 13, 19 and 24. Article 3 to the CRC asserts that all actions taken for children must be in best interest of the child. National governments need to address the educational needs of its youth population to the best interest of each child, thus including comprehensive sex education and largely eliminating the concerns of parents or religious organizations. Article 13 establishes that children have a right to seek, receive, and impart information of all kinds regardless of outwardly imposed limitations. This is clearly making it a direct violation to withhold or deny students information on their sexual health and educational needs.

Article 19: “State Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child,” (CRC, Art. 19).

Comprehensive sex education has been found to be a key element to protecting children from sexual violence. It has been found that education, particularly for young children, about sex and sexual boundaries gives people the knowledge and skills they need to identify sexual abuse, feel comfortable discussing it with others, and potentially lower their risk of sexual violence. Sex education provides a safe environment for children who are or have been victims of sexual violence to recognize the abuse they have experienced and seek protection with authority figures who hopefully have the child’s best interest in mind. The above article recognizes this, and goes so far as to directly call for the implementation of educational measures for the prevention of sexual abuse.

Finally, Article 24 addresses the child’s right to health, specifying what is included within that right, and clearly identifying the need, “To develop preventive health care, guidance for parents and family planning education and services,” as an essential health care service that children should have access to, (CRC, Art. 24, (f)). The Committee on the Rights of the Child has concluded that the rights to health and information require states to provide children with adequate, appropriate and timely HIV/AIDS and sexual health information. Additionally, in consistency with their commitment to ensure the right to life, survival and development of the child (art. 6), State parties must ensure that children have access to the knowledge and skills they need to protect themselves and others as they begin to express their sexuality.