Why I Thank God My Children Were Not Born In Africa
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Tags: Born In Africa
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No disrespect, but had my 6 children been born in Africa I would have spent most of my time fighting their school teachers than being a mother. Growing up in Zimbabwe for me meant teachers had the full authority and rights to brutally ‘beat’ any child in their care. There were no regulations or control on how far the teachers could go when it came to discipline, the teachers had so much power and the children had no rights at all. I know nothing much has changed for Zimbabwe, abuse from school teachers is still the norm.
Whilst I was growing up in Zimbabwe, my Boaz was also experiencing cruel abuse from his teachers in Ghana. I have shed tears just listening to some of his traumatic experiences which depict the plight of a boy-child in Africa.
You see his eyes, there is fire in them. One teacher once beat him so bad for ‘looking with such eyes’ so much the stick broke on his head. He was beaten so mercilessly that the girls in his class started to cry. It was that cruel and disturbing.
As a little boy he experienced so much abuse from the teachers that he prayed that he would never have a child born in Africa. The thought of his own child experiencing what he went through at school horrified him.
He always says to me there are only two people who ever wronged him in his life, the teacher who beat him for having fire in his eyes, and his head teacher who beat him with a bamboo stick. He wants to go back to Ghana and look those two evil men in the eye and asks them ‘why?’
Well, today he always says to me his prayers about his children were answered. No teacher will lay their hands on his children.
Today I posted something on my Facebook referring to what one of my high school teachers once said to me back in the day, and sadly the comments ended up being about the abuse that students suffered in the hands of some of our teachers. One lady who was my school mate came on my wall to defend a certain teacher who was a child abuser, asserting that beating girls on the bum was not abuse. So the comments got heated. The lady defending the teacher went on to say I should be very careful, otherwise I could be sued for defamation of character, for saying a school teacher was actually an abuser.
As a women rights activist, I feel sad that this is the state of Africa today. I believe the reason why Africa is still a developing continent is because abuse thrives and wickedness is seen as the norm.
I don’t really care about being sued, the lady who tried to silence the talk of school abuse on my wall made me realize that this is a big problem that doesn’t get talked about, hence the abuse in African schools continues.
I remember not long ago I watched a video on Facebook of a male teacher lining girls up to whip them on their buttocks whilst they pulled their dresses up tight. I was sick to the stomach watching the video, but it then dawned on me that this was the norm when I was growing up in Zimbabwe, teachers did whatever they wished to school children, and most of the male teachers were just perverts who had some sort of fetish and got a buzz from beating the bums of girl children.
In Zimbabwe I went to Chinhoyi High School, and in this school, abuse from teachers thrived. There was one particular male teacher whom I despised because he was brutal, so much he earned himself the nickname Rambo. Rambo had a habit of beating girls on their bums and violently slapping both girls and boys on their faces. I remember one incident where he lined girls up to pinch their nipples and waists or something perverted like that in the name of ‘discipline’. This sexual harassment he did is somehow justified in Africa.
No adult should smack or beat a child who is not theirs, end of. I don’t even do the things which teachers did to children to my own children. I was once beaten up for ‘staring’ at a teacher, I wasn’t even looking at her, I was looking into space.
Funny Boaz and I had similar experiences of being beaten up by teachers for ‘looking’. My beating was not as bad as Boaz’s, but it was quite traumatic.
Africans are conditioned to accept abuse and tyranny from a very young age. Children are taught that they have no rights at all, and if someone is your senior, especially your teacher, they have complete authority over your body. No wonder the continent is so messed up.
A male teacher beating a girl child on her bottom is both physical and sexual abuse, with traumatic effects on the girl child. This is something that should be banned, especially in 2018. There should be no place for such barbarism in this world.
Sadly African parents have been conditioned to accept that it’s okay for teachers to abuse their children. If parents go to the school to complain about their child being abused, it risks the child being dismissed.
I dream of an Africa where children will no longer be traumatized and abused by the school teachers who are supposed to protect them.
When my older children are being naughty, I threaten them with, ‘ I will send you to school in Africa,’ and it always does the trick. It is their greatest fear, to go to school were teachers will attack them without mercy.
I am thankful that all my babies are safe from the tyranny of African teachers. They are able to go to school and learn without the fear of being brutally attacked by their teacher.
I can’t even imagine another human being laying their hands to ‘discipline’ my children. I would kill them. I thank God that my children are ‘sheltered’ from the cruel abuse suffered by millions of African children in the hands of the brutal so-called strict African educational system that produces nothing but corrupt leaders who have no interested in bettering the continent but their own pockets. It just goes to show the damage done by the trauma of child abuse in the education system., corrupt leaders are produced.
So I thank God that none of my children were born in Africa. If they ever go Africa it will be to make a change, not to get beaten up.
Yes I really thank God that my children were not born in Africa.
