Hyderabad: An 11-year-old girl student was made to stand in the boys’ washroom by non-teaching staff in Rao’s High School near BHEL, Ramachandrapuram, on the city outskirts as punishment for not wearing the school uniform.
Priyanka’s parents wrote a letter to the principal complaining of such treatment: “After coming home and while going to sleep she broke into tears and begged me to stop sending her to school — in her own words she said, ‘Dad, please don’t send me to school anymore, I will learn cooking and washing clothes and help mother in her home tasks’.”
“These words of my child could not be digested by me and I understood the situation of her mind. This act of abuse has a very bad impact on my child and has damaged the personal dignity of my child,” her parents wrote.
A copy of the letter was also sent to the child rights organisation Balala Hakkula Sangham (BHS). Achyuta Rao, president of the BHS, said, “(It is) heinous corporal punishment faced by the girl student, making her stand in the boys’ bathroom. Balala Hakkula Sangham is treating this as a severe crime against the girl child. We will lodge a police complaint and also take it to the Human Rights Comm-ission.”
He added that it is such actions by the school staff that push children into mental depression and create an aversion for education, push children to take the drastic step of running away from home to avoid schooling, and more extreme actions like committing suicide. “This sort of behaviour of schools towards children must be weeded out,” he said.
