Three in every 10 teachers feel it is wrong to dismiss teachers who have sexual relationships with their pupils…

The research shows that four out of every 10 teachers say it is all right for boys in their classes to beat girls who ‘misbehave”…

In maintaining discipline in schools, teachers said it was fine to whip girls more than boys. Indeed, 65 per cent of the teachers said girls should be whipped more than boys.

Overall, more girls (18 per cent) confessed to being whipped at least three times a week, than boys.

More girls than boys believe it is fine to be whipped by their teachers. While 63 per cent of boys support the use of the cane, 75 per cent of girls support their teacher’s using the cane on them.

The Children’s Act clearly outlaws all forms of corporal punishment in schools, including caning of errant pupils by their teachers.

In Saudi Arabia, the girls are held down by a policewoman while they are whipped by a man. In the United Arab Emirates, they are ordered to lie on a bench to be lashed, though sometimes their hands are shackled above their heads.

As an Asian diplomat put it apologetically: “They must be restrained in case they run amok during the beatings.” For supposed immoral behaviour or for theft, a Filipina, Sri Lankan or Indian maid in the Arab Gulf can expect up to 200 lashes with a bamboo cane no thicker than a man’s small finger – administered by a man, of course.

Islamic “justice” had condemned hundreds of young women to be flogged in the Gulf in the past three years – well over 2,000, according to two Asian embassies that have vainly tried to protect their female nationals – before deporting them home, penniless and in disgrace. A chance meeting with a boyfriend, an innocent friendship or a serious love affair all have provoked the wrath of five-man sharia courts.

The cruelty of the whipping of women is carefully documented throughout the Gulf where, at least in the smaller emirates, newspapers carry daily reports of the flogging of young women…

Many of the Islamic court judges who order the whippings are Saudis who have been given sharia court posts outside the kingdom. One Western medical worker who was herself imprisoned on fraudulent charges of “attempted seduction” has reported that several women in Saudi prisons “allege that on being arrested by police or muttawa [religious police], they are sexually molested”.

The savage prison flogging of young women is routine in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations. Take the case of the small Arab emirate of Sharjah. On 23 March this year, an Islamic court there ordered two women to receive 180 lashes for alleged adultery. On 2 April, an Asian housemaid was condemned by the Sharjah court to 140 lashes and a year in prison for an alleged extra-marital relationship. Two days later, the same court ordered two married Asian women to receive 180 lashes for alleged adultery.

Last month alone saw another spate of lashings. On 6 September, a 24- year-old woman was sentenced to 90 lashes of the cane for alleged adultery; four days later an Asian maid was ordered to be whipped 180 times for “indulging in sex outside marriage”. Another maid was ordered to be flogged 140 times for “adultery” on 18 September.

Six days later, the Sharjah court ordered a 24-year old Filipina maid to receive 180 strokes of the cane for adultery with a male Indian friend. The Philippines embassy tried to save Josephine Vergara from her punishment, but was ignored. “We went to see her and she was, well, not happy about it,” an official from the embassy said. “We tried to see what we could do, but the wheels of justice had turned.”

“Justice” in the United Arab Emirates is always administered by a man who leans over the girl to cane her in the presence of both male and female prison officers and – sometimes, though not always – a doctor. “The man who lashes the girl has to hold a Koran under his right arm as he beats her. This is to reduce the pain he can inflict, because he cannot move his upper arm for fear he will drop the Koran in the dust,” said an Asian who has been present at the lashing of a girl. “But of course, it can still be very, very painful. If the girl screams too much and seems in too much pain, they will administer the punishment in instalments – 40 lashes now, 40 in a week’s time and so on.”

Arab courts insist that the lashings are the only way of ensuring that local “morality” is upheld – though the number of court-ordered floggings suggests the opposite. Islamic judges also contend that the women are not permanently scarred, even though this is clearly untrue. In the words of a Canadian nurse who worked in the largest hospital in the Saudi capital, Riyadh: “The lashings are brutal and excruciatingly painful; they [the women] will bear the scars physically and psychologically for a long time.”

Asian girls who become pregnant are almost inevitably doomed to be flogged. “If they think they are pregnant, they go to a local hospital – and if they are pregnant, the hospital will always ask them for their marriage certificate,” another Asian diplomat said. “If the girls are not married, the hospital is bound by law to tell the police, and the girls are arrested. From there, they go straight to the courts and are lashed. And then they are deported.”

An Asian diplomat at first refused to discuss the condition of maids who came to his embassy after being whipped. “It is very difficult for me,” he said. “The Saudis don’t want us to talk about this. But I must tell you that there is blood and there are scars. The way these girls are treated is simple cruelty; you could perhaps call it sadism.”

There’s a memory that has defined my life: I’m standing in line in a long, dark hallway, handcuffed to a friend, while listening to the horrifying sound of two other friends screaming out in pain. I’m in a jail in Iran’s capital, Tehran, and I’m about to be served my punishment: 40 lashes. My friends emerge from a room down the hall, tears streaming down their faces… I can barely breathe as I wait for the guards to call my name. Finally, it’s my turn. My friend and I, still cuffed, enter the torture room together.

Two expressionless, middle-aged female guards, each dressed in a chador, or long black robe, remove our cuffs, then instruct us to lie facedown on a pair of bare mattresses. We will be lashed on our backs. The guards grab two black leather whips and dip them in water, to make the lashes sting. I turn my head and see them raise the whips high in the air, then I squeeze my eyes tight, terrified. The first of 40 lashes comes down hard across my back. I feel a shock of searing pain… I keep thinking, I can’t believe this is happening to me. I’m a good student; I come from a great family. I’m not a criminal.

The worst part is knowing that my family members, who are sitting right outside this room, can hear the lashing. The emotional pain is almost worse than the physical pain.

It all started five days earlier, the day of my 16th birthday. My Sweet Sixteen began as it should have: sweetly. Two of us drove to a good friend’s house for my party. I was wearing what any traditional young Iranian woman would wear: a scarf over my hair, a black coat, and pants underneath my skirt. When I arrived at my friend’s house, I shed my layers, wearing just a black T-shirt and miniskirt. There were about 30 friends at the party, male and female; we listened to music and chatted. It was innocent fun, no alcohol or drugs.

Without warning, not even a knock, the religious police — government-funded groups that enforce Islamic morality — threw open the door and started shouting. It’s illegal in Iran to wear “indecent” clothes like miniskirts, to listen to music if it’s not approved by the government, and to party with the opposite sex — although people hold gatherings like this in the privacy of their homes all the time…

The police drove us to a local jail, then separated the boys and girls, throwing my 15 girlfriends and me into a barren, rat-infested room — no chairs, no beds, just a cold concrete floor…

On the afternoon of the fifth day, the guards rounded up my friends and me, pushed us into a bus, and drove us to a nearby court. We weren’t allowed to have lawyers or to defend ourselves. The sentence simply came down from the judge: 50 lashes for the boys, 40 lashes for the girls… We were immediately driven to a small concrete jailhouse near the courtroom, where the guards lined us up in the hallway, boys on one side, girls on the other. Our parents were there, too, and they managed to slip some money to the guards to lessen the severity of our lashes. I don’t think the guards upheld their end of the deal, though. I don’t see how the beating could’ve been any worse.

I hated that my family had to hear my lashing; the police wanted our parents there to teach us all a lesson. The beating lasted for what felt like an eternity. In reality, it was over in 10 minutes. Those 10 minutes changed my future.

When I was released, I hugged my parents more tightly than I ever had before. I’ll never forget that seemingly interminable car ride home. We all just sat in silence; my family simply didn’t know what to say.

While the degrees of corporal punishment on children vary from culture to culture, as a society centered on the household, China is no stranger to the use of parental discipline.

Anecdotes included:

My family appreciates the nature, so it was always with the willow tree branches/sticks/twigs my dad picked from the willow tree by the pond, stripped of leaves, with my mother herself personally disciplining me. Each time, the number of willow branches used depended on how much trouble I got into.

My old man basically use his palms, otherwise it would be bamboo strips. His slaps were really loud/strong… Bamboo strips were bad during the summer, I didn’t dare wear shorts.

Google translate generates some rather poor translations of the original Chinese post, if anyone’s interested in looking here.

An Iranian appeals court on Saturday sentenced women’s rights activist Shiva Nazar-Ahari to four years in jail and 74 lashes on charges of waging war against God, an opposition website reported.

In September, she had been handed a six-year jail term to be served in the remote town of Izeh, on charges of Moharebe (waging war against God) — an offence that can carry the death penalty.

But the court in Tehran reduced her sentence after clearing her of charges of “conspiracy against the establishment,” Kalame.com, said the website of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

The court also condemned her to be jailed in a prison in the city of Karaj, 35 kilometres (20 miles) west of the capital and her hometown Tehran, the report said.

Nazar-Ahari, 26, who according to the website has vigorously denied all of the charges, is the latest among the scores of activists picked up amid mass protests following President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s controversial re-election in June 2009 to receive a stiff jail sentence.

I grew up in a neighborhood with very few females my own age. The guys in the neighborhood let me tag along as long as I was willing to ride bikes on the ramps, jump off rooftops, hunt tadpoles, and set fires with a magnifying glass. They even let me practice with the Little League team (but I couldn’t play – against the rules, you know).

My dad was okay with all of this, and even tried to teach me to throw a curve ball. He had one rule – don’t let me catch you climbing trees. So he didn’t catch me.

There was this pine tree in the back yard that called my name everytime I passed it. I could see myself swaying in the top of it, and the temptation (and the encouragement of the boys) was just too much. One afternoon, when I was sure Dad wasn’t home from work, that temptation got the better of me. I was a good 15 feet up and had started to rock the top when I heard a commotion below me.

I saw my “buddies” take off through the woods as the sound of a car – Dad’s car – came up the dirt road. I tried to scramble down, falling the last 8 feet. Sprawled on the ground, Dad towered over me and asked if I was hurt. When I answered that I was okay, he took off his belt and tanned my tail (and broke his belt in the process).

And then he helped get the pine tar off my hands and knees, and cut down the tree. The whole time, he never said anything more than “Are you hurt?”

[The] following 5 Sri Lankans migrant workers were sentenced to five years imprisonment and 500 lashes each. They are:

1. Singarayar Calithar Wimalathas from Trincomalee
2. Abdul Basheer Mohamed from Mathurankuli, Puttalam
3. Amir Jabbar from Sammanthurai
4. Rismiya Abdul Haq from Kanatalai and
5. Manickam Kulanthaivel Rosa from Kalmunai.

Rismiya Abdul Haq and Manickam Kulanthaivel Rosa, are Sri Lankan women.

According to Abdul Lateef Lafir, Sri Lanka’s Consul General in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the written verdict delivered to the accused persons by the High Court of Jeddah, has been notified to the Foreign Ministry of Sri Lanka.

Consul General talking to “Asian Tribune” said that his consulate has received official sentencing document in Arabic language and it has been sent for legal translation. Abdul Lateef Lafir said that they have decided to take necessary action to appeal against the High Court verdict, as the appeal has to be filed within 30 days from the date of the deliverance of the written verdict to the accused persons.

Papua New Guinea’s acting secretary for education, Dr. Joseph Pagelio, has issued warnings about plans to use corporal punishment on students in Madang.

The Madang Urban Youth Council intends using corporal punishment from February next year if students are found outside of their school grounds or roaming the streets after class.

Dr Pagelio says currently corporal punishment is not allowed in schools for disciplining children who break school rules.

And he says no one apart from the school’s board has the power to punish students who break rules and the application of any form of discipline without board approval is a breach of the Education Act.

Chief wants corporal punishment included in bylaws

Teenage pregnancies are not only limited to the urban centres and it takes a huge toll on villages.

That is the sentiment of Tui Wainunu Ratu Orisi Baleitavea as they await word from the I-Taukei Ministry to include corporal punishment in the village bylaws.

He said that in the Provincial Council meeting last month, the village heads asked that a submission be put forward to Government to consider including corporal punishment in villages.

Baleitavea said that what needs to be understood is that without discipline, these youths will not be able to understand how their actions affect the whole village…

Meanwhile, submissions have been received by the I-Taukei Ministry and once Cabinet gives approval then the bylaws will be implemented in villages around the country.

A Saudi court gave heavy jail sentences to two Indonesian housemaids and ordered them lashed 700 times with a whip on charges of practising witchcraft to extort money from their employers, a local daily reported on Monday.

The two maids, aged 33 and 25 years, had used clothes and other personal items to cast a spell on the man and his family in Riyadh since they started working for him nearly three years ago, ‘Alyoum’ newspaper said.

The court in the Saudi capital was told that the two maids used their magic skills to control the family’s life and drain their employer’s financial resources.

“They also controlled his behaviour and the health of all family members…the family started to look feeble and pale and could not do anything to end their ordeal,” the paper quoted the man’s brother as saying.

“They succeeded in extorting much money from the family to send it to their families in Indonesia. They drained the family financially and physically.”

The paper reported the court sentenced the 33-year-old maid to five years in prison and 500 lashes and the other maid to two years in jail and 200 lashes. It also ordered their deportation after completing their jail terms.