On November 20th, the International Day of Children's Rights, Text to Change and War Child started an SMS-campaign in Uganda: “Let me Live and Learn with Dignity: Stop Corporal Punishment Now!”. 

At the moment there is no law that stipulates and enacts a full ban on corporal punishment in Uganda. As a consequence, children all over the country report that the practice continues without much consequence for the perpetrator. Surveys mention figures of children who regularly experience physical and emotional punishment in schools and the home as high as 98%.

Let’s join hands
The SMS campaign will run from November 20th to December 10th and is designed to support the War Child campaign by sending information about violence prevalence and alternative disciplining methods; soliciting feedback on statements and compiling a set of commitments from relevant stakeholders that can be monitored by children involved. War Child will support several groups of children to organize local campaign activities during this period like giving them the opportunity to meet with community leaders and discuss these topics.
Local representatives, teachers and parents, among others, receive the following message:

Let's join hands! The children ask you: What will you do to stop corporal punishment?
Send CHILD (space) and your action to 8282 for FREE.

A total of ten outgoing messages will be sent and received over the four week period. The messages will be sent in two languages: Luo and English.

Aim of the campaign
The overall aim of the campaign is twofold:

-To increase awareness on the effects of violence against children in general and physical and emotional (corporal) punishment in schools and communities in particular

-To hold duty bearers in schools and communities to account for their (in-) actions to end violence against children and physical and emotional punishment.

As final activity on December 10th children are able to hold their community leaders accountable for the SMS messages they sent themselves. These results will be submitted in a petition in Kampala.

What is corporal punishment?
Corporal punishment is any interaction with the child, based on the idea that children will only learn from their mistakes if they experience physical, emotional or psychological pain in response to their mistake. Thus, when a child makes a mistake, the adult will use a response such as caning, slapping, kicking, shouting or emotional ‘threats’ to ‘correct’ the child’s behaviour. The aim is to humiliate, shame or intimidate the child into stopping the behaviour.

About War Child

War Child’s goal is to empower children and young people in war-affected areas through community-based programs, which strengthen their psychological and social development and well-being by means of:

• Psychosocial programmes using creative arts and sports to strengthen the psychological and social development and wellbeing of children;
• Creative arts and sports programmes aimed at uniting children driven apart by war, in order to contribute to a peaceful society;
• Creating public awareness of and generating support for the plight of children in war zones.