Loophole allowing physical punishment of children at mosque schools allowed to stand

"The ban exempts schools where children attend for less than 12.5 hours per week." The time limit it utterly irrelevant, as there is ample physical and emotional abuse that could occur in "only" 12.5 hours a week. Surely Ed Balls realizes that; many others within the government have suggested that the real hangup here is the fear of inflaming "cultural" sensitivities, leading to possible "radicalization." In other words, vulnerable children are at risk while the educational establishment is submitting to blackmail.

"Double standards row as Ed Balls refuses to ban smacking at mosque schools to avoid 'upsetting Muslim sensitivities'," by Brendan Carlin for the Daily Mail,

mr Balls was last week urged to close a legal loophole which gives teachers in Britain's estimated 1,600 schools associated with mosques the right to smack children - even though it is banned in other schools.

He refused, prompting claims that he is allowing an alleged 'culture of physical abuse' in some of the mosque schools - or madrasahs - go unchecked.

Smacking is banned in all State and private schools. However, it does not apply to madrasahs, where pupils usually study in the evenings or at weekends, because the ban exempts schools where children attend for less than 12.5 hours per week.

Lib Dem schools spokesman David Laws, who is spearheading the campaign to close the smacking loophole, said: 'The Government needs to legislate to protect children - not leave an opt-out simply because it fears some ethnic or religious backlash.'

He was supported by Labour MP Ann Cryer, who said it would be 'bonkers' if the Government did not act. She said: 'I suspect people are frightened of upsetting the sensitivities of certain members of the Muslim faith.

A report just over a year ago warned that madrasah students had been slapped, punched and had their ears twisted

Irfan Chishti, a former Government adviser on Islamic affairs, said that one madrasah student was 'picked up by one leg and spun around' while another pupil said a teacher was 'kicking in my head like a football'.

In a separate report in 2006, leading British Muslim Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui raised fears that physical abuse in madrasahs was 'widespread'.

MPs have been told some of the alleged abuse of children in the Islamic schools may be the result of ignorance of laws on the treatment of children among Muslim parents and teachers.

Mrs Cryer, whose Keighley constituency in Yorkshire has a large ethnic community, claimed some of the children being illtreated in Islamic schools were those with special needs.

She said she was alerted to the problem by a local schoolteacher-I had a lot of problems in a madrasah in my constituency,' said Mrs Cryer.

'They don't seem to have any understanding of special needs children. If a kid isn't learning their Koranic verses terribly well, they think it's because they are being naughty, not because they have an incapacity.

'It isn't always a question of just beating. They have a particular punishment called the "chicken position" where a child must squat on the floor until they get very uncomfortable.'

She denied she was biased against Islamic schools and said classes run by 'strange Christian sects' should also be covered by the smacking ban.

The corporal punishment exemption also covers Sunday schools, home tutors and other people who are considered to be acting 'in loco parentis'.

They can still smack children as long as the punishment is 'reasonable' - the same rule as applies to parents.

But experts suspect the real problems occur in madrasahs, although they believe it also an issue with some fundamentalist Christian Sunday schools....

One can only figure it would be banned outright in the latter case if not for the 1600 British mosque schools that could be affected, and potentially offended.


Book 2, Number 0495: Narrated Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-'As: The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) said: Command your children to pray when they become seven years old, and beat them for it (prayer) when they become ten years old; and arrange their beds (to sleep) separately.