By Nomazulu Thata |  The irony of it all is that violence on children and women in our country is termed “honourable violence.” The article written by Chigumbu Warikandwa causes great concern to all those who are mothers of this great country: Zimbabwe. This man is actually in favour of honour violence. We are happy though that this kind of violence on our children has been set straight at legal/licit level. It is not allowed to cane/beat, corporal punish a child at school and in domestic institutions equally.

This man called Chigumbu Warikandwa is still living in the middle ages and does not know that we are living in an ever changing global village. Corporal punishment that he thinks must be upheld: punishing women and children corporally is so out of date; it has no place with progressive development. Curiously he does not mention that men should be corporally punished too, he emphasises the honour punishment of women and children. In our society women and children fall in one category: CHILDREN. He categorises how women should be canned and how children should be canned. How should men be canned little-minded Warikandwa, pea-sized- brain Chigumdwa?

How I just wish I had married a man like you: Chigumbu Warikandwa, I would have put you straight long back; right to your size. After a one year interaction as hubby and wife, you will be as straight as the road called “Soloboni Avenue” It runs from Bulawayo town and connects Kirk Straat in Beit-Bridge. Ask Bulawayo residents and will tell you the legend about this Soloboni Avenue. Married to a misogynistic and none respect for children man like you, the rhythm and grammar in that home will be: “give me my freedom or death!”

Our backward practices such as corporal punishment on women and children really impede all kinds of development in the Sub-Sahara continent. Our traditions and practices keep us behind, we are made to feel like we are just animals and by right sometimes! This attitude that of battering children and women is shared by many men and women in our societies, draws us backwards instead of forwards in terms of enlightenment and civilization. We must shed all those negative practices and one of them is never to treat our children like dogs. Warikandwa classically makes an equation between treating a German dog and treating a child, they must be treated with the same set of values, beatings/battering/canings/corporal punishment. I do not mean that dogs should be brutally treated. It is the sad parallel made to treat a child like a dog that is tasteless, barbaric but last.

We have lost hundreds children already, children who have been beaten to death by their parents or guardians in this new Millennium? We do not know how many women have been hacked to death in this millennium alone. This barbaric punishing of children in the name of “honour violence” happens in the African continent more than in other countries! Does it not surprise us when they tell us that Africa is just a dark continent! It is indeed still a black continent because of the manner in which we deal with our most vulnerable members of our societies: the children. With our philosophy of UBUNTU we are supposed to do better than tearing the souls of our growing children by corporal punishment/ child- caning or child-barbaric-beatings.

Research says that children who are caned occasionally at homes by their parents and guardians are very fearful and anxious persons for life. They always alert, not sure of themselves and their surroundings. What is most disturbing is the physical signs of abuse, visible: apart from pain, blood may came out of some parts of their bodies, bruises, torn clothing, broken items in the home. When they see that in their bodies, they become powerless and they are expected to keep this secret that they are barbarically and systematically caned by their abusive parent or guardian. Above all they blame themselves for this abuse: they may feel rage inside them, fell very embarrassed by it, and feel very humiliated by the beating as it shows physical signs that can be a source of laughter from other children at school.

The children will therefore internalize this pain and make it their own. This is where the poisonous problem starts because children have this natural tendency to identify with strength, will want to emulate that abuse they have seen and experienced for a long time. Experts believe that those children who may have experiences violence of that magnitude in their adolescence, they become abusers when they grow up. Boys who witness abuse meted on their mothers are more likely to abuse their wives or sisters and daughters equally because he thinks it is honourable to beat them. Again for girls, when they grow up seeing their mother beaten, battered by their father, they tend to think that violence in a family is wholly normal, her husband can beat her, she will take in any domestic violence meted on her by her husband.

Violence on children has deep seated, devastating consequences on the growing mind of the child. Experts say that violence at an early stage is the simple best predictor of juvenile delinquency, adult criminality, drug-abuse, alcohol abuse, post traumatic stress disorder and several other mal-functioning’s of adult life. Most of the abused people remain children in their lives; they emotionally do not grow up at all. The society loses them when those long term effects of child abuse resurface in the adult persons. They do not have a normal speech motor, or defined cognitive skill, when they are found wanting in their speech deficiencies either they withdraw or they become violent. The reason is that they never learnt to verbally speak but hands spoke for them most of the time.

“Honour based violence according to the definition is a form of domestic abuse which is perpetrated in the name of so-called “honour” The code “honour” which it refers to a set at the discretion of male relative and women who do not abide by the  “rules” are then punished for bringing shame on the family.”

Women should on this international women’s year 2017 reflect on this honour violence. It is a scourge in our societies and the nation as a whole. We are an educate nation and we pride ourselves to be the most educated nation in the entire African continent. Is it a sign of education to still glorifies honour violence and even write a shameful article and put it on social media, Warikandwa condemns our judiciary system that has recently put a statutory ban on caning children at school and home institutions and even in the public?

It should be our duty as women to protect our children: we are indeed very grateful of the constitutional law that put this explicitly, whoever is found guilty of abusing a child will taste the wrath of the law. This responsibility of looking after our children should be our prerogative as we are the ones who bring those children up. It did not, however mean women are not abusers, we have seen it in our social media how women have been abusing children, by beating them with sticks: meting immeasurable pain on the growing children.

On a second thought I would sympathize with this malcontent called Warikandwa. It is all evident that he was an abused child at his adolescent age. He wishes that revenge sub-consciously on others even his own children. It is for this reason he does not see any harm in meting absolute pain on a child or a woman. If he did not learn it at an early age to be gentle with women and children he will not be able to learn it at his adult age. I can already see a cycle of violence in his life, the evil that one does lives on! A cycle of violence is very difficult to break. It is not easy but we still have to learn that punishing children with non violent means can bring about better results than absolute violence. Violence perpetuates violence! There is nothing like honour violence little pea-big brained Warikandwa!  Again women are not children. Women are adults just like men. We are all equal before the law!

However, I would also hasten to say that you are not alone in this back thinking at all they are many men in Zimbabwe who share your disposition. Can you please go back and do some research and please do not use the bible as the single research source but go to the library and really educate yourself about child abuse and its devastating consequesnces.