A video has emerged showing an Arusha, Tanzania District commissioner caning school desk thieves. The politician can be seen making the thieves queue as they receive their dose of pain in their buttocks. Each thief receives three strokes of cane administered by the politician while lying down. Just like teachers used to do it in schools.
The District Commissioner accuses the thieves of being less patriotic since stealing school desks means that Tanzanians will accuse the government of not supplying enough desks for their students to use in schools. Some of the men protest the caning but then the politician questions their manliness for fearing being caned.
Any form of corporal punishment (caning) has been considered cruel punishment by most countries around the world. But this politician and many others in Tanzania including president John Pombe Magufuli thinks corporal punishment should be allowed not only in schools but also in Tanzanian society as well.
For example in 2016, Tanzanian president John Pombe Magufuli supported a politician who beat more than a dozen students with a stick. President Magufuli urged teachers and parents to do the same by emulating the deeds of the said politician.
“I congratulated the regional commissioner for caning the students. I told him that he didn’t beat them hard enough,” Magufuli told a public rally in Songwe region, in the southern highlands.
The students that were caned back then had been involved in riots across Tanzania which included them burning their dormitories to the ground. Magufuli said the students, accused of torching dormitories, got what they deserved.
“What human rights are they talking about?” said Magufuli, who ordered all students in A-level classes at the school to be suspended until their parents pay for the damage caused by the alleged arson.
Tanzania is among four other countries in Africa that allow corporal punishment in schools and among the members of the public as well. The other four countries include Somalia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Mauritania.
Kenya and six other countries have made corporal punishment illegal in all settings including schools, prisons and society at large. The other six countries that have banned corporal punishment in all settings include South Sudan, Tunisia, Togo, Benin, Republic of Congo and Cape Verde Islands.
Here is the video of the Arusha District Commissioner caning school desks thieves in Tanzania. Watch…
