Human Rights...Big Picture Little Picture

The hubbub about China's human rights issues continues, with discussions of whether Secretary of State Clinton did or did not say the right thing in her recent speech, and did or did not give tacit approval for China to continue to do as it pleases without fear of U.S. sanction or reprisal (Are those the same thing? No, they are not. I love dictionary.com!). Now there is a State Department report on human rights worldwide in which China is broadly criticized for committing extrajudicial killings and torture, coercing confessions from prisoners and using forced labor. China's official Xinhua News Agency said the report interfered in the country's internal affairs and ignored China's achievements in human rights, which Beijing defines mainly as improvements to living standards.(1)

This sounds remarkably similar to the arguments used for a long time regarding domestic violence and child abuse. It wasn't appropriate, reform opponents argued, to interfere with the internal affairs of a family. You might even hear a similar "living standards" argument about having a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, and food in their bellies - as in, "so what's to complain about?"

Usually, I work in the office, but recently, I was in my room working on my laptop. Whit was out, I don't remember where, and I was here alone. Through my window, which overlooks the outdoor living area of the family below (see photo in the post entitled "Sanitation"), I heard a child crying and screaming. Frankly, this is not entirely unusual in such close quarters with all the windows open and it usually ends after a minute or so. This time, however, I also heard the mother's voice speaking loudly and continuously in the "angry mother tone" punctuated by staccato increases in the child's screaming intensity.

"Beating" children is the #1 - and it seems to me the only - form of punishment in our neighborhood and probably in most of Ghana. Beating wives is also common, but I am told it occurs "more in the north". Children's punishment seems to follow an escalation path including 1) angry and loud berating; 2) slapping any available bare skin (in the way my brother and his friends would test their endurance by holding one another's wrists and slapping forearms with just the tips of their moistened fingers to see who could withstand the stinging pain the longest); 3) slapping the back or back of the head - hard; 4) hitting with a bamboo or rattan cane - approximately 1 meter long and 1 cm. diameter (like those at right but without the handle, sold at the market from pallets containing stacked bundles of 50) - on the back, arms, legs, buttocks, etc.; and 5) additional violence depending on the level of parental rage. Step 1 seems to always be included, but skipping over any of the other steps to get to a more advanced step seems perfectly acceptable depending on the "crime". All except, perhaps, #5 are also acceptable to do to someone else's child.

So, there I was in my room, hearing a berating and, I realized, a slapping session going on in the courtyard below. After 5 minutes or so of heart-wrenching screaming and crying, I went to the window to see what the hell was really happening. Five minutes is a very long time to be on the receiving end of any punishment. What I saw was the small girl, Mamakos (also called Makos), from the downstairs family, cowering in the corner between the building and a short flight of 5 or 6 stairs while her mother yelled at her and slapped her bare skin, grabbing one wrist and then the other to slap her forearms. When Makos pulled her arms back, hugging them to herself, her mother switched to slap her bare legs, all the while delivering a rapid-fire verbal assault. When Makos attempted to pull her legs up under her, curl up and cover them with her skirt, mom switched back to her forearms or pulled up the back of her shirt to slap her bare back. The mother would pause the slapping periodically but continue the yelling. Although I could not understand the words, the emotion was clear, except I couldn't figure out the pauses. I thought maybe it was one of those "now stop crying" things but then the slapping would start up again. For another five minutes, at least, I watched the little girl scoot around the small area below my window trying to find a place to cower that would protect some part of her. And, despite, the screaming, the wailing, the crying, no other adult came to see what was happening. In a culture so inured to the screaming of children, what happens when a child really needs help?

Mamakos is three years old and attends nursery school.

I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to go down and stop it - to stand between the mother and child. But, in this culture, I am a visitor - an outsider - and beating a child is an expected responsibility of a parent. What could I do?

Finally, the mother stopped and I breathed a sigh of relief and wanted to go down and take Makos in my arms and comfort her. The mother went up the short flight of steps and through the screen door into the house, while Makos continued to hug herself in a ball, sobbing and periodically breaking into a more intense wail - of anger or indignity or renewed pain, I don't know which. Then I saw the mother come back through the screen door with a cane in her hand. She called Makos, who, like a wild and terrified animal crept up the stairs and over the threshold into an alcove beyond my view but from which I heard berate, thwack, and wail, berate, thwack, and wail for several more minutes before it ended. I was nauseated and anxious and paced my room like a caged animal myself. Throughout all of this, I couldn't bear to leave Makos "alone" and go to the other end of the building so I couldn't hear - and I couldn't stop it either.

Or could I? Should I? What was the right moral action? If something is morally wrong in one place, can it be acceptable in another? Is "morally wrong" simply a cultural agreement? Certainly there are things others think are morally wrong that I don't. And there are clearly things that I think are morally wrong that others don't. And if I do think something is morally wrong, am I honor and duty bound to stop it? Am I willing to accept that others who think something is morally wrong can forcibly stop me from doing it?

My head was spinning, my stomach was churning, and I didn't know the answers to any of these questions except the last one. Based on my experience with religious institutions, the answer is very clearly "no". But where is the line for how long and how intensely a child can be beaten by someone 5 times her size? And in a culture where beating is accepted, tolerated, and encouraged, is there still a line people think is going too far - and if so, will anyone even investigate the wailing, or notice the abuse? Can it be enforced? Is it when the skin is broken? When an arm is broken? What about when a trust is broken or a spirit is broken or a heart is broken?

So, what do you think? What would you do? Are you asking yourself what Makos did to be punished in the first place? Will that change your answers? Are there absolutes? And how does this apply to the bigger picture of international opinions about the human rights practices of nations? Be careful how you respond, you may be forced to act.
XO