[Corporal punishment in schools was outlawed in China in 1986, but the harsh disciplining of children remains widespread, reflecting a tradition of “dama jiaoyu,” or hitting-and-cursing education, even if it has become a topic of debate among some parents in recent years. The habit can easily slip into abuse, scholars say.]
By
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Elementary students in
punishment in
schools in 1986. Credit Lam Yik Fei
for The New York Times
|
“It
won’t work,” I said, appalled and hoping an argument based on efficiency rather
than morality might persuade a father who clearly believed the Chinese saying
that “a dutiful son is made by the rod.”
“You’re wrong! It will,” he said, breezily, turning his
attention to a more agreeable parent at the school meeting, where we were
hearing about secondary education options for our children.
Corporal punishment in schools was outlawed in China in 1986, but the harsh disciplining of
children remains widespread, reflecting a tradition of “dama jiaoyu,” or
hitting-and-cursing education, even if it has become a topic of debate among some parents in recent years.
The habit can easily slip into abuse, scholars say.
Figures
on child abuse are scarce, reflecting a lack of government and social
engagement with the problem, several specialists said.
.In a 2013 study of child abuse and suicidal
thoughts among adolescents in Shanghai, the authors, Sylvia Y. C. L. Kwok and
Wenyu Chai of the City University of Hong Kong, and Xuesong He of East China
University of Science and Technology, noted that in a national survey by the
China Law Society of 3,543 people, about 72 percent said that their parents had
beaten them.
Another survey cited, of elementary pupils in Xi’an
“The problem is linked to culture,” Mr. He, a professor of
social work and sociology, said in an interview. “Chinese culture is very
tolerant of it, so there’s a lot of corporal punishment in families and
schools.”
That makes the new Chinese law against domestic
violence important for
children, who are
covered by it, as are older and disabled people. “We need to protect
our children,” Mr. He said.
But how?
News reports that women across China province of Yunnan
Mr. He has a creative solution:
Redeploy the thousands of newly idle family planning workers around the country
as a network of child protectors. Their workload has declined, he said, since
the government ended the one-child policy.
“They have a giant network
around the country. They know where the children are,” he noted. “Each village
has a family planning worker. It’s potentially an excellent framework.”
“It’s especially
important to educate parents,” he said, “to tell people that there are other
ways to raise children. In the villages, a lot of families just don’t know of
any methods except ‘dama.’ ”
The Ministry of Civil Affairs, the branch of government with the
most responsibility for children’s welfare, he said, was approaching the
problem only “slowly.”
Whether spousal or child abuse or other forms of family
violence, studies show that they are linked. Abused children are prone to
abusing others when they grow up. In a 2011
study of a county in
central China
“Men who witnessed their mother being beaten when they were
children were nearly three times more likely to beat their own children than
men who had not witnessed violence,” the study said.
Retraining family planning
workers to protect children “will be complicated,” Mr. He said, adding that he
had not yet proposed the idea to the authorities. “But that’s the ideal.”
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Didi Kirsten Tatlow on Twitter @dktatlow
