Dear Editor,
In the year 1995, abortion (the deliberate killing of unborn children) was legalised in Guyana after many abortionists in high places used the mass media to exaggerate to alarming proportions the `maternal deaths' which occur each year at back street abortion clinics.
In the year 2001, this same subtle strategy of `elaboration' is being used by the mass media (including Stabroek News) to elaborate to alarming proportions the issue of those `few students' in our school system who ended up being physically hurt after being flogged by their teachers.
This subtle firm of elaboration is being done in such a manner as to make the general populace believe that corporal punishment cannot promote discipline in the classroom or even our homes and must be banned.
I am calling on all God fearing persons in this beautiful land to let us start using our pens, our mouths and whatever else Almighty God has blessed us with to protest against all those who are now trying to remove this `sacred law of flogging a child' to make him or her a more disciplined individual from our schools and eventually our homes
Yours faithfully,
(name and address provided)
Editor's note
We report all cases of child abuse that are drawn to our attention. As for corporal punishment in schools, quite a few parents are willing to accept this provided it is done in the manner prescribed by the regulations, that is by a prescribed teacher at a prescribed time and in a prescribed manner.
Others are against all forms of corporal punishment but even those who support it are against any kind of random violence by teachers in a classroom.