AMMAN — Over one in ten children in
Jordan experience ‘severe physical punishment’, according to new research from
, also known as the Sisterhood is Global Institute.
اضافة اعلان
The research team defined ‘severe
physical punishment’ as hitting or slapping the child in the face, head, or
ears, and repeatedly hitting the child harshly. The study also found that men
tend to commit more violent punishments against children as compared to women.
It noted that from the beginning of 2021 up until June 17, there were nine
domestic murders in the Kingdom.
The organization is calling for an
end to Article 62 of the
Jordanian Penal Code, which permits parents to use
physical punishment against children.
“Family murders will continue and
may even increase in frequency, as long as our legislation includes mitigating
excuses for perpetrators of crimes under the pretext of ‘honor’ and as long as
the law permits disciplinary beating of children,” reads the report.
SIGI’s report builds on the data
collected by the Demographic and Health Survey 2017-2018, which found that
around one in six children between the ages of one and fourteen had experienced
any form of physical punishment in the twelve months prior to the survey.
Violence against children is “a
fact, it’s a reality,” said psychiatrist Abdullah Abu Adass in an interview
with Jordan News. He mentioned that there are “a lot of unreported cases” of
such violence. “I think we have a problem with reporting… We may have a lot of
cases that are hidden under the norms and values. (They’re) not reported to the
authorities.”
Adass pointed to global estimates
that up to a billion of children between the ages of five and sixteen have
experienced some form of violence against children, which includes “physical,
sexual, and emotional abuse, neglect, and maltreatment.”
“The first important one that we can
see in Jordan is the maltreatment, which includes the violent punishment of
children,” he said. “We can also see cases of bullying, including
cyberbullying.” Adass added that there have even been cases of suicide in
Jordan committed by survivors of abuse and violence.
Violence has ‘intensified’
The call from SIGI comes as several
sources have indicated a rise in violence against children during the pressures
of the pandemic.
According to a socioeconomic
assessment conducted by UNICEF during the summer of 2020, physical violence
against children increased among almost two-thirds (65 percent) of households
benefiting from UNICEF’s assistance during the COVID-19 lockdown. Calls to the
national child protection helpline have also increased by a third during the
pandemic, according to UNICEF.
“Domestic violence during the
pandemic has intensified,” said Rasheed Rousan, a representative for the Jordan
River Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on child safety and
community empowerment, in an interview with
Jordan News. During the lockdown in
particular, “victims preferred to keep silent, or to wait longer before asking
for help, so violence continued to escalate.”
Likewise, “The problem is
reporting,” said Adass. “We need to have more formal and informal ways of
reporting, that keeps the privacy of people who report such cases.”
“Psychological violence is always
invisible,” said Mariyampillai Mariyaselvam,
UNICEF’s chief of child
protection, in a video interview with Jordan
News. This can make psychological violence more difficult to detect and
thus more difficult to prevent.
UNICEF spoke of a “cultural silence”
around reporting violence. There is a national child helpline through which
parents and children alike can report violence, as well as an online reporting
system in schools. However, fear of repercussions and cultural norms can
prevent individuals from reporting violence. “We know that there are
underreported cases, and it is very hard to track how many,” Mariyaselvam said.
Psychological damage
Adass emphasized the psychological
impact of violence against children. “A lot of cases of antisocial behavior in
adults directly happens as a result of violence in early childhood,” he said.
He also pointed out that several
risk factors, such as disability and mental health challenges, poverty, high
unemployment, and access to firearms in the family, can make children more at
risk of violence.
“The majority of physically and
emotionally abused and neglected children served by JRF often suffered from
economic challenges,” said Rousan.
The positive side to working on
violence against children, according to Adass, is that “it’s a preventable
issue.” He called for Jordan to adhere more closely to the international
mandates for child protection, “taking into account the norms and values in
Jordan.”
For Adass, preventing violence
against children is important not just for the children themselves but also for
society at large. “We cannot speak about a stable community unless we speak
about the entities that may contribute to (instability),” he said. Experiencing
violence is “a major psychological burden. Violence contributes also to cases
of absence from work, a major factor for the economic burdens that we may
have.”
Violence “cannot be overcome
overnight,” said Mariyaselvam. “We still have a long way to go when it comes to
ending and reducing the violence in society.”
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