Break the chain of abusive treatments
The tragic incident at a high school in Osaka has received an extensive media coverage regarding the issue of corporal punishment. Moreover, violence by the coach of female Olympic judo players has been analyzed extensively in the media.
We are highly skeptical about the frequent use of the phrase “corporal punishment” in the reporting by the media and about the focus on corporal punishment as .the source of the incidents.
Corporal punishment is a punishment with physical pain given by parents or teachers to students or children under their control for educational purposes.
It is a physical painful treatment to make children or students learn that what they did was wrong.
Based on this interpretation of “corporal punishment”, some people support it and even protect it.
However, if corporal punishment is to teach students through pain that what they did was wrong, then when a coach hits or kicks players “to make the players win” or “to increase fighting spirits in players” or “because players failed to do as instructed or did not call out loud enough”, then the coach’s action is not corporal punishment but it should be called violence.
Violence used by someone with absolute authority against powerless persons is “an abuse”.
In Japanese sporting circles, instructors or coaches often have absolute dominance over players.
When instructors or coaches with absolute authority inflict violence against players, the act is obviously an abuse.
As long as the phrase “corporate punishment” is used with ambiguous interpretation, there will be people who support it and think it is necessary for teaching lessons.
However, we believe that incidents which are now reported by the media as corporal punishments are actually “abuses”, not corporal punishment.
We cannot allow abuses to be protected by such phrases as “an unfortunate result of enthusiastic coaching” or “a result of hard training to realize achievement”.
Similarity is found in many child-abusing parents who argue that their behavior was not violence but was discipline.
Many abusing parents have been brought up as abused children when they were young. Instructors trained under abuse will become abusing instructors.
We believe that the repetition of abuse which has been long tolerated and accepted by some members in sports communities is clearly linked to the reported incidents.
The repetition of abuse should be discontinued.
We strongly hope that all instructors and teachers will act reasonably to break the chain of abusive treatments.
