ON Wednesday November 20, 2013, representatives of the Youth Coalition for Transformation (YCT) were invited before the parliamentary Special Select Committee on Guyana’s Commitment To The United Nations Human Rights Council, With Regard To The Abolition Of Corporal Punishment In The Schools, The Abolition of the Death Penalty and The decriminalization Of Consensual Adult Same-Sex Relations And Discrimination Against Lesbians, Gays, Bi-Sexual And Transgender Persons where they reaffirmed YCT’s position against corporal punishment. Please see below the text of YCT’s submission to the Special Select Committee for publication:

Re: Submission on the possible abolition of corporal punishment in schools
1. The Youth Coalition for Transformation (YCT) is a youth group which is committed to transforming the attitudes of Guyanese to nationhood, human rights and to social justice. As with many other Guyanese, YCT members are committed to advancing causes around human rights and alleviating violence, especially against our young and vulnerable.
2. YCT is aware that Guyana has a history in which the use of violence, especially violence used by the state not only in schools but by the Guyana Police Force and other forces, has been exacted to achieve power and domination. YCT believes that this larger tolerance of violence has resulted in an increase in the levels of violence in the school. The transformation has to come from saying NO to the use of violence in our schools and homes against those who are weakest.
3. YCT also joins in condemning violence in our schools; violence not only committed by teachers against students, but also by students against teachers; students against other students; and parents and other persons against school officials.
4. YCT believes that the beating of children at home and in schools has resulted in many children becoming cultured to the use of violence as a way of being powerful.
5. YCT further believes that corporal punishment is part of the general cycle that violence is a medium for conflict resolution that is also instituted in the minds of the young that are equally the victims.
6. The Youth Coalition for Transformation (YCT) has committed to working with all Guyanese to transform our society in which our children and youth do not have to suffer violence; and do not have to use violence to assert their own sense of value. YCT is also concerned that the beating of children is also part of a culture of violence which includes domestic violence, gang violence and
the rapid escalation of conflict between citizens into violent situations, rather than access mechanisms to mediate and adjudicate disputes before they become violent.
7. We have seen from our work with children in Agricola on a literacy programme, that it is possible to transform our educational settings into one in which children enjoy learning and in which their challenges are met by adults. We did not have to beat any of the children who participated in our literacy programme and we have no intention of doing so.
8. The beating of children in our schools contravenes elements of the Constitution of Guyana that guarantees the rights of citizens, especially the vulnerable, to the right to protection against harm and abuse.
9. In our commitment to transform Guyana, we do not believe that culture and attitudes are static and that the culture of violence must be changed. We also reject the idea that Guyana cannot honour its obligations to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations Convention against Torture because of a culture of violence whether by the actions of state agents from corporal punishment to extra judicial killings to actions among citizens from domestic violence to gang violence.
10. In the 21st century, we do not wish Guyana to be seen as a country which cannot honour its own Constitution as well as the international Human Rights standards as they relate to the most vulnerable in the society. The events at Marudi Mountain in March 2013 and Linden in July 2012 of unwarranted police violence and killings have already given Guyana a negative image as one in which visitors and investors cannot be certain of their own rights and protection from the violence of the state, much less from criminals.
We call on the National Assembly to lead the way forward by outlawing corporal punishment in schools and removing this legacy of slavery and oppression.
We also call on the National Assembly to ensure that school managers, teachers, students and parents are provided with the policies and resources to reverse the rising tide of violence in schools. We believe that Members of Parliament in their investment in Guyana’s education system must ensure that the next generation of Guyanese is nurtured and educated without violence.

Youth Coalition for Transformation