Egypt’s national council for childhood and motherhood filed a complaint on Wednesday asking the general prosecution to investigate the case of a schoolgirl allegedly beaten by her teacher, Egypt’s state news agency Mena reported.
Last week, 12-year-old schoolgirl Marina Guirguis suffered extensive vaginal bleeding after she was violently beaten by her Arabic teacher, in a public primary school in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, her mother told Al-Ahram's Arabic news web site.
In a statement published Wednesday, the state council said the case represented a blatant violation of children’s rights, and demanded the professor be punished as an example to prevent violence in schools. It also called on educational institutions to “adopt measures to stop practices that violate the rights and dignity of the child.”
Egypt's child law prohibits those responsible for the care of the child from subjecting them to harm.
Despite this, corporal punishments are still widely practiced in Egyptian public schools. UNICEF Egypt suggests the implementation of the law has been slow due to a lack of specialised services - child courts, social workers and police, as well as a lack of knowledge regarding child protection.
Marina’s mother told Al-Ahram's Arabic news website that the teacher was beating all schoolchildren with a stick on their way to the classroom, and that he started beating her daughter more violently when she objected to this practice.
She said her daughter’s friends brought her back home “soaked in her blood,” adding that when she took her to the hospital they said she had suffered such extensive bleeding that it led to vaginal bleeding.
Education minister Mahmoud Abul Nasr told Al-Ahram Tuesday the teacher only slapped the schoolgirl on her hand, adding that his deputy in Alexandria visited the girl at home and did not find her to be injured.
