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Egyptianstreets
The Egyptian National Council of Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) and UNICEF Egypt launched “Calm not Harm” a national campaign to raise awareness on the physical and emotional harms of violence on children.
The campaign, called “Calm not Harm” (Bel Hodou’, Mesh Kaswa) was also launched also in cooperation the Ministry of Education. It is the third phase of an already existing national campaign ‘Our Children’ (Awladna).
“The role of parents and care-givers in providing protection, stability and encouragement for our children is extremely important in the childhood and adolescence phase. This is critical “considering the changes going on, with the child as well as the realities, and challenges that come with an ever-changing digital era. Laxity, negligence and violence in all its forms are unacceptable,” said Dr. Azza El Ashmawy, Secretary General of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) in an official press release.
The campaign highlights a hotline 16000 which would provide more information about suggested behavioural advice.
Egypt’s track of abuse and corporal violence against children is notorious, with a presence attested both in households, orphanage centres and educational establishments.
According to a joint study by UNICEF and NCCM in 2015, parents, peers and teachers were the main inflictors of violence on children, with 50% of children aged 13-17 having experienced beatings in the year of the survey.
Another study, the 2014 Egypt Demographic and Health Survey, revealed that children aged 1-14 were also exposed to disciplinary practices that involved corporal punishment.
As such, the campaign ‘Calm not Harm’ focuses on establishing channels of communication between children and parents rather than abiding to traditionalist means of violence.
Physically inflicting violence on a child is illegal in Egypt according to the Egyptian Child Law 12/1996. Despite this law potentially providing an imprisonment punishment of a minimum of six months, the law is seldom applied except in cases that maintain public interest.
