people and planet

17
having been involved in physical fights between 2009 and
2012, and the prevalence reached almost 70% in Samoa
(Figure 17.6).
In the United States, a large group of surveys
administered over two decades allows the Departments
of Justice and Education to monitor levels of physical
violence. The rate of violent victimization at school of
students ages 12-18 declined from 9% in 1993 to 4% in
2013. The percentage of grade 9-12 students carrying a
weapon such as a gun, knife or club on school property
declined from 12% to 5% during that period. But the
percentage of those threatened or injured with such
a weapon on school property remained constant at
7% (Robers et al., 2015).
In the Caribbean, school violence is a major problem.
According to the Citizen Security Survey carried
out in seven Caribbean countries, 16% of youth carried
weapons during the day (UNDP, 2012). The Trinidad and
Tobago Youth Survey, which was administered in about
25% of the country’s secondary schools, albeit mostly
in high risk urban areas, found that 6% of students were
gang members and 8% were gang associates (Katz and
Fox, 2010). The Community Safety and Security Branch
of the Jamaica Constabulary Force regularly collects
statistics on fights, stabbings and weapons found and
seized in school (Jamaica Observer, 2015).
FIGURE 17.6:
Many adolescents across the world are involved in physical fights
Percentage of 13- to 15-year-olds who reported having been involved in physical fights
over the past 12 months, 2009–2012
80
Involved in physical fights at school (%)
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Suriname
Costa Rica
Malawi
Malaysia
Honduras
Niue
Benin
Bolivia
Anguilla
Maldives
Belize
Cook Islands
Kiribati
Br. Virgin Is
Philippines
Iraq
St Kitts/Nevis
Pakistan
Peru
Barbados
Dominica
Nauru
Morocco
Palestine
Kuwait
Egypt
Oman
Algeria
Antigua/Barbuda
Fiji
Lebanon
Qatar
Male
Total
Female
Tonga
Jamaica
Solomon Is
Mauritania
Samoa
A culture of physical
In the Caribbean,
violence is often embedded
in teacher–pupil relations.
school violence is a
In rural Uganda, in a
major problem baseline survey of 42
primary schools using the
child institutional version of
a screening tool developed by the International Society
for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, 54% of
students reported physical violence by a staff member
(Devries et al., 2015). Such behaviour is sometimes
condoned by communities and even tolerated by the
state. According to the Global Initiative to End All
Corporal Punishment of Children, corporal punishment
of children in schools is not fully prohibited by law in
73 states (Global Initiative, 2015).
Much of the scale and scope of sexual violence in schools
remains hidden
Sexual violence, a highly destructive form of violence in
schools, is a global concern, yet knowledge of its extent
is limited. It manifests as verbal and psychological
harassment, sexual assault, rape, coercion, exploitation
and discrimination in and around schools.
The 2007 Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium
for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) survey
provides comparable data on sexual harassment in
primary schools across 15 education systems in sub-
Saharan Africa. In six countries, including Kenya and
Zambia, over 40% of school principals reported that
pupil–pupil sexual harassment had occurred either
‘sometimes’ or ‘often’. Teachers were also reported to be
perpetrators, with an average of 39% of school principals
stating that teacher–pupil harassment had occurred in
their schools, with the range varying from one-fifth of
surveyed schools in Mozambique to over three-quarters
in Seychelles (UNESCO, 2015j).
But the way school principals perceive the problem
provides an incomplete picture. Violence against Children
Surveys of youth aged 13 to 17 have collected information
about the location and circumstances of incidences of
sexual violence in eight countries. In Malawi, one in five
females and one in eight males had experienced at least
one incident of sexual abuse in the year prior to the
survey in 2013. Among victims of abuse, 21% of boys and
10% of girls reported that their most recent experience
of sexual abuse happened in schools (Malawi Ministry of
Gender, Children, Disability, and Social Welfare, 2014).
Source: GEM Report team analysis (2016) based on 2009–2012 GSHS data.
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CHAPTER 17 | TARGET 4.A – EDUCATION FACILITIES AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS