CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN KAZAKHSTAN

Video clip: School CP in Kazakhstan

Caning of youths

With notes by C. Farrell

Caning of youths at religious school.

This is the first item we have ever had from Kazakhstan, a secular but mainly Muslim country in Central Asia that used to be part of the Soviet Union.

This two-minute film is said to have been made at a religious school in 2015 (three of the recipients are wearing Muslim hats). The teacher is disciplining four errant youths with an unsuitable big thick stick; he is angry and shouting, which is an inappropriate state to be in when administering punishment. Nevertheless, he is sufficiently in control that most of the strokes (about 10 each) are well targeted across the seat of the jeans, so we can regard this as being closer to proper formal CP than to random brutality.

Interestingly too, to start with at least, the boys readily adopt something approximating to an English-style bending-over stance (see screen grab above), suggesting perhaps that they are familiar with this sort of punishment, and evoking more of a European than an Asian/Muslim cultural heritage.

Reports suggest that school CP is supposed to be unlawful in Kazakhstan -- this would already have been theoretically the case when it was part of the USSR until 1991 -- but that the law is widely ignored.

HERE IS THE CLIP:

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