January 2011 - Blackherbals.com

Continued from page 13 – AbuseCorporal punishment and sexual assault"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhumanor degrading treatment or punishment."Article 5, Universal Declaration of Human RightsAdopted and proclaimed by General Assembly resolution217 A (III) of 10 December 1948Corporal punishment, the "English vice", has been afeature of the British education and class system for overa century. Only recently (mid-1998) was corporalpunishment in schools finally outlawed by the UKParliament. Incidentally, this is a century after Parliamentdecreed it illegal to beat animals.Corporal punishment is usually administered on anintimate part of the child's body, usually the buttocks,which are often undressed or partly undressed for thepurpose. The child is forced, by a person in a position ofauthority, to adopt a submissive pose, eg bending over, sothat control, subjugation and humiliation are absolute.The feeling of power and the ability to inflict pain ontheir victim is, to the abuser, sexually stimulating.The person who uses corporal punishment, especiallymales, will later use the memory of administering thepunishment as part of his visualisation during sexualactivity, including masturbation. Anyone who advocatescorporal punishment, and especially anyone whopractices it, is almost certainly - and unwittingly -revealing their propensity towards sexually abusivebehaviour.The child who is physically punished, especially ifregularly - and parents who hit their children (perhapsdescribing it as "tapping", "smacking", "correcting", orsome other euphemism to disguise the violence) oftenrepeat the hitting, especially if it has the desired effect,which it frequently appears to in the short term. The childis wholly dependent on their parent(s) and the parent(s)possess, in the eyes of their child, a god-like status; in theeyes of the child, the parent can do no wrong. Therefore,when the child is smacked, he or she is unable to say "Iam being unjustly sexually assaulted by a grown-upperson who hastily resorts to violence because they havenever learnt (or been taught) how to help me developpositive behaviours and correct inappropriate behavioursin a non-violent way". In many countries, including theUK, the child might add "Whilst there are laws againsthitting animals and grown-up men and women, there areno laws protecting me from violence if my parentschoose to call it 'smacking' or 'discipline'." Without thisvocabulary and insight the child resolves the injustice bycoming to believe that "I am bad and I am therefore beingjustly punished by my good parent". Later, the child mayadd "...and when I grow up I am going to punish bad peoplein the way I've been punished". Well, it never did me anyharm. This line of reasoning has also failed to make acrucial distinction: no person can ever be bad; it is theirbehaviour which is bad. We have control over ourbehaviour and can modify our behaviour at will, but wecannot change the person we are.For many, relief from the pain - or memory of pain - ofcorporal punishment during the person's own upbringingcan only be achieved by inflicting it on others. This isknown as displacement aggression; he hit me and I can't hithim back so instead I'll hit somebody else. Pass on theaggression, repeat the cycle. This is evidenced through thejustification "It never did me any harm" - except toconvince the person that it's OK to abuse children throughinflicting pain. Whilst corporal punishment may appear towork in the short term, it is merely control by fear. Thelesson that it teaches in the long term is that violence is anacceptable solution to any problem.PornographyPornography has always been a traditional outlet for sexualfrustration, and probably always will be. It's acceptability isdetermined by current social values. Whilst most people donot object to "soft" porn (and may even secretly indulgeoccasionally, perhaps just to see what they are missing),many doubt the value and wisdom of "hard" porn (exceptthose who make their living from the profits thereof).However, the harder the pornographic content, the moreabusive it tends to be.It could be said that an individual's need, and hencedependency, on pornography is directly proportional to thatindividual's inadequacy. Others may regard it as a substitutefor lack of opportunity.Reporting abuseWhy don't targets of abuse report their abuse? There aremany reasons:• abuse is a betrayal; the target trusted and depended onthe integrity of another (eg child on adult, pupil onteacher, subordinate on manager) and that personbetrayed them. The target fears and anticipates, oftenwith justification, that when they report the abuse, theywill be betrayed again.• those in authority did nothing to prevent the abusewhile it was happening, nor did they do anythingsubsequently. Very often it was the person in theposition of authority who was the abuser. Trust inauthority is low, with justification.• the target fears, with justification, that no-one willbelieve them-14- Traditional African Clinic January 2011Continued on page 15