Disputing Discipline: Child Protection, Punishment, and Piety in Zanzibar Schools 9781978821774

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Disputing Discipline

Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies The Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies is dedicated to increasing our understanding of ­children and childhoods throughout the world, reflecting a perspective that highlights cultural dimensions of the ­human experience. The books in this series are intended for students, scholars, prac­ti­tion­ers, and t­ hose who formulate policies that affect c ­ hildren’s everyday lives and ­f utures.

Series Board Stuart Aitken, geography, San Diego State University Jill Duerr Berrick, social welfare, University of California, Berkeley Caitlin Cahill, social science and cultural studies, Pratt Institute Susan Danby, education, Queensland University of Technology Julian Gill-­Peterson, transgender and queer studies, University of Pittsburgh Afua Twum-­Danso Imoh, sociology, University of Sheffield Stacey Lee, educational policy studies, University of Wisconsin-­Madison Sunaina Maria, Asian American studies, University of California, Davis David M. Rosen, anthropology and sociology, Fairleigh Dickinson University Rachael Stryker, h ­ uman development and ­women’s studies, Cal State East Bay Tom Weisner, anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles For a list of all the titles in the series, please see the last page of the book.

Disputing Discipline Child Protection, Punishment, and Piety in Zanzibar Schools

F R A N Z I S K A F AY

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW BRUNSWICK, CAMDEN, AND NEWARK, NEW JERSEY, AND LONDON

 L IBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Fay, Franziska, author. Title: Disputing discipline : child protection, punishment, and piety in Zanzibar schools / Franziska Fay. Description: New Brunswick, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020029101 | ISBN 9781978821743 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781978821736 (paperback) | ISBN 9781978821750 (epub) | ISBN 9781978821767 (mobi) | ISBN 9781978821774 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: School discipline—Tanzania—Zanzibar. | Corporal punishment of children—Tanzania—Zanzibar. | Rewards and punishments in education— Tanzania—Zanzibar. | Child welfare—Tanzania—Zanzibar. | Children—Tanzania—Zanzibar—Social conditions. Classification: LCC LB3012.4.T34 F39 2021 | DDC 371.509678/1—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020029101 A British Cataloging-­in-­P ublication rec­ord for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2021 by Franziska Fay All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—­Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. www​.­r utgersuniversitypress​.­org Manufactured in the United States of Amer­i­ca

 For my grand­mother Ingrid, and my ­mother Christina

CON T EN T S

A Note on Language and Translation

Introduction

ix

1

1

Being Young in Zanzibar

23

2

Childhood with/out Punishment

48

3 ­Children and Child Protection

76

4

Child Protection in Zanzibar Schools

109

5

Gender, Islam, and Child Protection

132

6

Decolonizing Child Protection

155

7

Beyond Well-­Being, ­toward C ­ hildren

177



Conclusion

185

Acknowl­edgments

197

Glossary of Swahili Terms

201

Notes

203

References

209

Index

225

vii

A NOT E ON L A NGU AG E A N D T R A NSL AT I ON

All translations from Swahili ­unless other­wise noted are mine. All interviews referred to in the text w ­ ere conducted in Swahili between January 2014 and July 2015. To protect my interlocutors’ anonymity, I use pseudonyms. Swahili, including words derived from Arabic, is given in Standard Swahili Spelling (Kiswahili Sanifu).

ix

Disputing Discipline

Introduction

A crooked queue of different-­sized ­children wearing top-­white, bottom-­ blue school uniforms, some worn, some freshly ironed, appears in front of me as I step through the gate of Kisamaki Primary School. It is a hot day in May 2015, and the lined-up ­little heads turn ­toward me as I make my way across the courtyard. “How are you guys” (hamjambo), I want to know and quickly receive a response from a boy t­ oward the back of the line: “Badly” (vibaya). Surprised by his response, which in ever-­polite Swahili is unusually frank, I won­der why the ­children are lining up and follow up. “Badly? But why?” “­Because of the cane” (mikwaju), is the answer I receive. Kisamaki Primary in Zanzibar Town has been one of Save the ­Children’s pi­lot schools for its child protection program against corporal punishment since 2012. Therefore, I am very surprised that the first t­ hing I see as I enter is a group of ­children waiting to be hit. In search of Mwalimu Hamadi, the headmaster whom I am supposed to meet, I pass by the soon-­to-­be-­disciplined students and enter the main school building. Quickly I am led to his office and then on to the staff room where I am told to wait. “I can also wait over ­there,” I propose as I point t­ oward a bench next to the front of the line of ­children. “­There, where the ­children say they w ­ ill be hit” (watapopigwa). With a ner­vous laugh Mwalimu Hamadi responds, “But no, in our school ­children are not hit (watoto hawapigwi). Just wait in the staff room.” I do so but station myself by the door where I can still watch the scene. Mwalimu Hamadi now attends to the line and hits ­every child on the ­behind two to three times with a cane. The students must move forward individually, face the wall, and hold their hands up high against it. Some are visibly pained, some laugh, and many jump away playfully and seem ­little disturbed.

1

2

DISPUTING DISCIPLINE

Corporal Punishment Corporal punishment is an emotive issue—to witness as well as to research and write about. Researching child protection and corporal punishment required me to witness cases of physical chastisement while sitting, often awkwardly, in the back of primary and Qur’anic school classrooms. It entailed being a frequent witness to situations that “ ‘Western’ activists would deem an abuse of c ­ hildren’s rights” (Perry 2009, 49) and classify as vio­lence. Nevertheless, the practice was considered “normal” in many countries of the “Global North” up to the 1970s, and smacking—as one aspect of corporal punishment—­continues to be widely socially tolerated in the home in countries like G ­ reat Britain, where hitting ­children seems to be acceptable as long as no mark is left (GIECP 2016). In line with the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of ­Children, for example, physical chastisement is considered “legalized vio­lence against c ­ hildren” (GIECP 2015). France achieved a full ­legal prohibition of all forms of corporal punishment, including in the home, in 2019, and Germany in 2000. It was only with the global emergence of a child rights perspective that the line between abuse and discipline was gradually drawn (Montgomery 2008). Laws around child protection and corporal punishment have been central tools in the negotiation over altering existing standards of discipline. The adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1989—­“one of the most globalized po­liti­cal values of our times” (Wilson 1997, 1)—­laid the very foundation for the global c ­hildren’s rights and child protection discourses and started a new era for thinking about young ­people and their rights and needs. The CRC is also the first treaty to directly address ­children’s protection from vio­ lence (Freeman 2010, 219). Tanzania, including its semi-­autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar, ratified the CRC in 1991. Article 19 specifically emphasizes the need for state parties to have proper laws in place to prohibit vio­lence against ­children, as well as mea­sures to protect them from all forms of vio­lence, both physical and psychological. Article 3 states that protection and care necessary for the child’s well-­being must be ensured through respective institutions, ser­v ices, and facilities. In 1990, only a year ­after the adoption of the CRC, a regional ­human rights treaty that emphasizes both c ­ hildren’s rights and their responsibilities—­the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC)—­was ­adopted, and it entered into force in 1999. The ACRWC requires states to protect ­children from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, which is stated as including physical or ­mental injury, abuse, or maltreatment while in the care of a parent, guardian, or other caregiver (article 16); it also spells out parents’ and other caregivers’ duty to ensure that discipline is administered with humanity and “in a manner consistent with the inherent dignity of the child” (article 20). Tanzania ratified the ACRWC in 2003. In 2011, the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar passed the

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Zanzibar C ­ hildren’s Act.1 This locally developed comprehensive child rights law acknowledges the need for protective intervention and paved the way for protection programs in and outside of Zanzibar’s schools. Through a c ­ hildren’s rights lens, thus, corporal punishment is a violation of h ­ uman rights. IN ZANZIBA R ,

­children’s rights and child protection in the universalized sense

of ­those concepts have only been introduced into societal discussions over the past de­cade or so. Disputing Discipline is an ethnography of the reactions and positions on ­these ­matters within the institutionalized contexts of education and international development where most of ­these discussions and negotiations take place. In ­those spaces the strug­gles that exist around ­children’s rights and their protection are prominent and most easily observable. The continuation of corporal punishment—­which can be easily observed in institutionalized settings like the school—­has become a central concern of international child rights organ­i zations like Save the C ­ hildren or UNICEF. The child protection interventions ­these organ­izations plan and implement frequently focus on the eradication of physical chastisement where it is known to continue. This, too, is the case at Kisamaki Primary School in Zanzibar, where I observed one of what was prob­ably many routinized group chastisements. Even though from 2012 onward the school was one of Save the ­Children Zanzibar’s pi­lot institutions for the Positive Discipline program designed to eliminate corporal punishment (see figure I.1), hitting as a form of discipline was far from in the past when I visited two years l­ater. Mwalimu Hamadi’s assurance that the students ­were not being hit or beaten (hawapigwi), while caning them in front of me, clearly indicated the multiple dimensions and interpretations of the m ­ atter. Generally, t­ here is much disagreement over what corporal punishment actually entails. Echoing Mwalimu Hamadi’s seemingly contradictory stance, the Zanzibari government claims that “corporal punishment does not apply in the education system,” but caning is said to indeed be administered in schools as “a legitimate and acceptable form of punishment [not intended to] be violent, abusive or degrading” (GIECP 2016, 2). Indeed, although the Zanzibar ­Children’s Act of 2011 states in article 14 that c ­ hildren should not be “subjected to vio­lence, torture, or other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment,” it also allows parents to “discipline their c ­ hildren in such manner which s­ hall not amount to injury to the child’s physical and m ­ ental well-­being.” Further, Zanzibar’s Education Act of 1988 includes Regulations for Corporal Punishment that allow but restrict the administration of caning to up to three strokes to the headmaster. Such room for individual interpretation makes t­hese laws l­ittle more than well-­meaning rhe­toric, proving that legislation alone is insufficient to transform persisting attitudes and be­hav­iors (Sidebotham 2015, 391). Despite having committed to the CRC, Tanzania remains one of the seventeen states in which corporal punishment is not fully prohibited in any setting,

4

DISPUTING DISCIPLINE

FIGUR E I.1  ​Signs of the Child Protection Unit and the Unit for Alternative Forms of Discipline in Vuga, Zanzibar Town.

including being used as a sentence in the judicial system for crimes.2 Although neighboring ­Kenya achieved full prohibition in 2010, in Zanzibar, corporal punishment is si­mul­ta­neously ordinary and extraordinary, normalized and contested. It still exists as an ordinary practice throughout almost all educational contexts. At the same time, physical chastisement is problematized u ­ nder the international gaze, which condemns it and opposes its continuation based on ­children’s rights approaches. Whereas UNICEF (2011) considers it the most common form of vio­lence experienced by c ­ hildren on an everyday basis in Zanzibari schools, locally it is frequently merely categorized as a form of discipline. Commonly, only its harsh application that disregards religious rules for its administration is rejected, whereas its “lighter” application—­smacking—is generally accepted. Disputing Discipline does not question ­whether child protection interventions should or should not exist. Instead, taking as the point of departure that child protection actors’ and policy makers’ genuine w ­ ill is “to protect c ­ hildren’s best interests” (Seymour 2011, 228), the book considers what existing interventions do. Instead of denouncing corporal punishment as an interruption to everyday life—­which is primarily the task of child rights activists—­the book considers it through the lens of anthropology as an integral part of childhood

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socialization in Zanzibar. It focuses on the whys and hows of what works and what falls short to help us understand better why well-­intentioned child protection programs sometimes “fail” or are rejected. My hesitation to rush to make moral judgments arises from the imperative to take seriously my in­for­mants’ viewpoints and multiple understandings of protection. A ­ fter the investigation of dif­fer­ent moral positions that exist in Zanzibar, I thus abstain from defending an overarching authority of universal h ­ uman rights as both abstract universalism and cultural relativism would “posit an essentialist approach to social phenomena” (Nieuwenhuys 2008: 6). This book postpones po­liti­cal dialogue with child protection policy makers and is in the first place a reproduction of a social situation that aims to speak for itself. As “with pain ­there is a moral demand to respond to its expression” (Stanley Cavell, quoted in Das 2007, xi), this also held true for witnessing Zanzibari c ­ hildren’s pain. In this context, it was impossible to be interested in both child discipline and protection but at the same time remain “outside the order of it” (Das 2015a).3 Ultimately, and in light of the impossibility of po­liti­cal neutrality, I tend to side with t­hose who claimed to suffer from the child protection programs I investigated and from the corporal punishment I frequently observed.

Child Protection From the 1920s, anthropological explorations of the diversity of childhoods and ­children’s lives started to grow (Mead 1928; Malinowski 1929; Firth 1936; Fortes 1949; Lévi-­Strauss [1955] 1961; Richards 1956). From the 1980s, child abuse and ­children’s suffering became a distinct topic of anthropological research (Korbin 1981; Scheper-­Hughes 1992; Bluebond-­Langner 1987). Child protection, nevertheless, as an individual policy field and central ethnographic object, has only recently come into focus (Boyden, Pankhurst, and Tafere 2012; Pells 2012; Montgomery 2015). T ­ hose child protection programs that build their efforts on the CRC have come to be considered as “often lacking” a “self-­critical attitude” (Bourdillon and Myers 2012b, 617). Ethnographic accounts of child protection activities have identified the problematic potential of universalized protection approaches to decontextualize and spatialize (Bourdillon and Myers 2012a; Hart 2012). T ­ hese interventions aim to respond to child abuse and neglect, but more than delivering professional ser­v ices, they also aim to change ­people’s child-­rearing practices, attitudes, and values. In so d ­ oing, they occasionally also fail to see the cultural and historical significance of ­these values, especially their positive features (Boyden et al. 2012, 519) and thus may encounter reluctance and opposition from t­ hose they target and involve. In Zanzibar, the government first began to develop a systematic approach to child protection as a distinct policy field ­after Tanzania—­which the Zanzibar archipelago has belonged to since 1964—­became the first African country to

6

DISPUTING DISCIPLINE

conduct a National Study on Vio­lence against C ­ hildren in 2009; according to UNICEF, which conducted the study, vio­lence against ­children included physical abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect; physical abuse included hitting (UNICEF 2011, 7). Mea­sur­ing forms of sexual, physical, and emotional vio­lence against ­children, this study found that corporal punishment is the most common form of vio­lence that c ­ hildren experience on an everyday basis in schools. Since the passing of the Zanzibar C ­ hildren’s Act, Save the C ­ hildren and UNICEF, in collaboration with the Zanzibari government, have led the implementation of child protection defined as “a set of mea­sures and structures to prevent and respond to abuse, neglect, vio­lence and exploitation affecting c ­ hildren” (Save the ­Children 2013, 5). The integrated approach aims to improve ­children’s quality of life by limiting practices considered harmful or abusive according to the CRC. Schools have become central intervention points for child protection programs, whose goal is seen as the eradication of corporal punishment as a normalized disciplinary practice; preventing it from a further “descent into the ordinary” (Das 2007) is central to ­these approaches. Although local and international attempts to implement the Zanzibar C ­ hildren’s Act have been praised, a constructive critique of the less positive effects of t­ hese attempts has not yet been done. This lack of self-­critique and an insufficient engagement with the unintended consequences of protection mea­sures that may interfere with young ­people’s everyday lives also hold true for child protection programs in Zanzibar schools. This book sets out to provide such a critical reflection by showing that child protection programs are frequently perceived as supporting a “Westernization” of Zanzibari society and vernacular child-­rearing norms and to carry connotations of moral devaluation. In Disputing Discipline I oppose the assumption that child protection programs are beyond the need for contestation and focus on the voices that hold hesitation and reluctance to engage with such well-­intending interventions. Through a detailed exploration of ­children’s and adults’ ideas and experiences of punishment and protection in educational settings in Zanzibar Town, the book engages in a critical exploration of ­children’s (­human) rights governance. It unravels disagreements regarding the compatibility of vernacular standards of protecting ­children with the universalized standards of internationally initiated child protection programs. Generally, ­people the world over understand ­children as ­human beings in need of protection. However, how we conceive of c ­ hildren and childhood and also think about ­children’s safety and well-­being are influenced by the sociocultural contexts in which we learned to think and know. Even though many ­people in Zanzibar support the continuation of corporal punishment and oppose protection programs that intend to eradicate the practice, most would claim to live a moral life. The path by which an individual legitimizes hitting as morally

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righ­teous and feels demoralized by this prohibition is unique to each teller. In line with Arthur Kleinman’s understanding of the moral as the “local” and ethics as “universals” (2006, 2), I therefore dive deep into the many local ways of making morality around child-­rearing in Zanzibar. I complement this with the multiple universals of child-­rearing ethics, with all potential tensions and conflicts in mind. Put differently, I show how national and international child rights activists are changing the archipelago’s moral and po­liti­cal landscape in a complex interplay between local and global child protection politics and explore the ethical assumptions under­lying globalized protective interventions and the moral issues t­ hese potentially cause for p ­ eople in Zanzibar. Above all I explore Zanzibari ­children’s moral lives and ethical challenges and consider the moral issues that they encounter when they are involved in child protection programs. I focus on the values and obligations they deem impor­tant in their lives and on which they hold each other to account (Woods 2013). The concepts that turned out to be central to this endeavor include manners/courtesy, chastisement, safety, piety, empathy, and re­spect. Disputing Discipline hopes to open up a space for discussion around what it means to be young, to be safe, and to be pious at the same time and at the intersection of global development intervention. Although it seeks to unmake the assumption that child-­rights–­based approaches are always in the best interest of the child, it also aims to offer a new perspective on child protection by privileging experiences from a Muslim-­majority setting. The book elicits understandings of potentially harmful child-­care practices and broadens knowledge about cultural constructions of vio­lence and their vari­ous meanings in dif­fer­ent contexts (Crewe 2010, 49; Korbin 2003). Compared to explorations of ­children’s chastisement, ­there is a paucity of research on the effects of child protection mea­sures for Muslim c ­ hildren and adults. Building on Michael Bourdillon and William Myers’s critique of “standardised, one-­size-­fits-­a ll policies to protect ­children” (2012b, 615) and their call for more critical engagement with what are often uncritically assumed to be protective approaches, this book privileges being young and d ­ oing well as constitutive of the construction of child protection experiences. Even though, with the increasing presence of international organ­izations in Zanzibar, ­children’s rights are increasingly recognized, iterated, and performed in public, child protection programming still ­faces many challenges. Not only do international child protection actors encounter opposition in their endeavors but local Zanzibari child protection workers are also equally criticized for promoting the decay of Zanzibari-­Islamic morality. Inversely, vernacular modes of knowing how to care for c ­ hildren and approaches to specifically Islamic imaginations of “modernity” hold the least authority in official discursive hierarchies of protection knowledge, and parents and teachers frequently feel undermined in autonomously knowing what is in the best interests of their ­children.

8

DISPUTING DISCIPLINE

Child protection programs that try to ban a practice that officially is not illegal inevitably face challenges. Protection interventions set out to change existing values and related practices, and their dissemination of dif­ fer­ ent moral truths influences how childhood and ­children’s well-­being are socially constructed—­often without considering their cultural and historical significance. As Paul Rabinow put it well, t­ hese are “pre-­existing moral landscapes to which the carriers of rights culture bring their message of change and improvement” (2001, 142). In line with this, many of my research participants identified tensions in the fact that child protection programs intend to eliminate the use of corporal punishment, while at the same time ­there is no ­legal ban of the practice in Zanzibar. About Save the C ­ hildren’s Positive Discipline program, a member of the Zanzibar Teachers Union (ZATU) stated, “The proj­ect is hypocritical (unafiki). If the ministry truly intends to stop corporal punishment, why have they not changed the regulations (kufuta kanuni hii)? The heads of the ministry themselves want the cane/corporal punishment to continue” (bakora inedelee). And a sheikh at the Mufti’s Office emphasized similarly that “laws have to change (sheria zibadilike), be enforced (isimamiwe) and implemented (itekelezwe), and teachers and parents must be ready to embrace t­hese changes” (kupokea mabadiliko).

What C ­ hildren Say Listening to what ­children say about child protection and corporal punishment ­matters. Both practices concern young ­people first and foremost, so it should be their views and opinions that we take seriously when discussing their well-­being and how it can be improved. Young p ­ eople’s accounts—­largely in the form of visual and written productions such as photo­graphs, drawings, poems, and stories—­pre­sent the central data that this book’s discussions take as point of departure. Listening to what makes ­children want to go to school or not illuminated the features of schooling and learning that ­matter to ­children themselves. My young research participants’ thoughts on what they liked and disliked about state school and madrasa offered insights into characteristics of the Zanzibari education system through the eyes of its attendees. ­Those who expressed positive feelings about schools often emphasized the importance of education and repeatedly invoked the meta­phor, “education is the key to life (elimu ni ufunguo wa maisha).” ­Children’s reasons for liking school included the following: ­Because “with an education I can drive our country’s nation” (niendeshe taifa la nchi) and “education is the command of God” (amri ya Mwenyezi Mungu) (boy, age thirteen)

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­B ecause “education is light (nuru) and can get you any job” (girl, age twelve) “When I can study calmly (kwa utulivu) without being hit like a donkey” (boy, age twelve) “When the teacher lets me use the library to read a story to change my thoughts a bit” (nibadilishe mawazo) (girl, age thirteen) “When I can read the Holy Qur’an (Kurani takatifu), the hadith, and the names of Allah” (girl, age thirteen) ­Because “the Qur’an is every­thing” (boy, age eigh­teen) ­Because the Qur’an is “the guide (muongozo) of our lives” (boy, age fifteen)

­Here are some of my young interlocutors’ reasons for disliking attending school: “School tires me b ­ ecause when one person misbehaves (atafanya ukorofi) or ­causes chaos (zogo) the ­whole class is punished” (girl, age twelve) “­B ecause we are hit (tunapigwa mikwaju) and punished (tunaadhibiwa) everyday” (boy, age fourteen) “­Because other c ­ hildren laugh about me when I d ­ on’t understand something in class. They also exclude me b ­ ecause my school uniform is not nice. And I ­don’t have notebooks to write into, no bag, shoes and pens” (girl, age thirteen) “­Because some days we d ­ on’t study or teachers teach somewhere e ­ lse and come whenever they like” (boy, age thirteen) “Being caned” (kupigwa mikwaju) (boy, age fifteen) “Being caned (kupigwa mikwaju) and hurting (kuumwa), sitting on the floor when reading, and the heat” (joto) (boy, age fourteen) “Being hit without a reason” (boy, age eleven) “Receiving punishments that keep me from ­going to class when the teacher is teaching” (girl, age thirteen) “Not being respected (kutoheshimiwa) by the teachers” (girl, age ten) “The old and bad (kibovu) building; when it rains we all get wet” (boy, age eigh­teen)

Zanzibari students enjoy school/madrasa when they can study in quiet environments without being physically disciplined and feel ­ f ree to learn and

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educate themselves with worldly and religious knowledge. They dislike the poor-­quality infrastructure; being hit, bullied, or made fun of; being poor; or when they cannot study b ­ ecause teachers are absent. Both state primary schools and madrasas are central parts of Zanzibari c ­ hildren’s education, despite constituting differently structured spaces of knowledge transmission. Yet they are similar in the forms of discipline applied to correct ­children’s be­hav­ior. The use of corporal punishment through the cane (bakora; also, fimbo or mikwaju) to chastise c ­ hildren for perceived “misbehavior” is an ordinary practice in both settings. Although learning pro­cesses are central to childhood and socialization in Zanzibar, ­children’s fear of physical punishment is also “intimately associated with education” (Last 2000, 376). Understanding childhood as a realm of learning that is structured by specific spaces and knowledge emphasizes the complexity of c ­ hildren’s lives according to the meanings t­ hese spaces generate and their influence on childhood experiences. ­C HILDR EN’ S OW N DEPICTIONS AND EXPL ANATIONS

of chastisements and pos­

si­ble protections from them reflect a large variety of perspectives that illustrate the heterogeneous real­ity of young p ­ eople’s experiences of “vio­lence” and “protection.” As ­w ill be vis­i­ble in the accounts of and perspectives on corporal punishment I collected from adults—­whether teachers, parents, religious authorities, or child rights activists—­many of both my young and older interlocutors’ accounts echoed each other, although ­others strongly disagreed with each other. The photo­graph by twelve-­year-­old Suhaila (see figure I.2) taken inside a Qur’anic school captures what appears to be an instance of physical chastisement. She wrote on the back of the photo that a child is being wronged (disciplined) through hitting, with no details added. Her descriptive commentary on the situation paired with her sympathy for the child being hit suggests both the normalcy and the condemnation many young Zanzibaris who spoke to me feel as they encounter physical chastisement in their educational environments on an everyday basis. Yet other young p ­ eople’s accounts reflected dif­fer­ent emotional positions on the practice. A poem by Zuhura (age fifteen) goes as follows: Adhabu za utotoni

Punishments during childhood

zatupa huzuni

cause us sadness

Mateso ya mitaani

Insults in the streets

vile vile majumbani.

and also at home.

Majozi mingi jamani

So many tears, my ­people

huwatizami machoni

but you do not look them in the eyes

Watoto tushikamaneni ­Children let us stand together katika hili letu jambo.

in this ­matter of ours.

FIGUR E I.2  ​“A child is being wronged (amekosewa) by being hit (kupigwa), (to be

given adabu).” Photo by Suhaila, age twelve.

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DISPUTING DISCIPLINE

Zuhura’s critique of the effect of punishment on c ­ hildren’s lives reflects, from a young person’s ­a ngle, the per­sis­tent difficulties of determining the limits of appropriate discipline and the perceived challenges that young ­people face in their environments. The variety of written and visual elaborations on the notions of childhood, discipline, punishment, and safety by young p ­ eople themselves put the discussions around child protection and corporal punishment in Zanzibar and beyond in a narrative frame that includes young p ­ eople’s voices, which have so far been neglected.

Religion, Law, and Well-­Being Child protection begins by acknowledging that t­ here are some practices that are harmful to young ­people and from which they need to be kept safe, regardless of where they live or what they believe. What differ are the narratives that are used to draw the bound­aries between physical or psychological interference that is legitimate versus that which is not. In Zanzibar, child protection and religious belief and identity tend to be linked to each other. Religious narratives—­and, in Zanzibar, 99 ­percent of the population identify as Muslims—­are frequently used by adults to justify the continuation of physical chastisement as a form of discipline in the education system. Even though t­ here is no unifying and coherent Islamic stance on the acceptability of physical punishment in Zanzibar, ­there is a tendency to depict light caning and that restricted to a few strokes as a nonviolent and acceptable form of discipline, whereas the harsher and more excessive application of the practice is condemned. In Zanzibar, Islam—­and the many definitions of what that may mean—­becomes the single most impor­tant force used by everyday believers and religious authorities to both legitimize and destabilize the physical chastisement of ­children.4 Development prac­ti­tion­ers have yet to recognize its potential to facilitate their child protection work. Although many religious leaders in Zanzibar support physical chastisement and rationalize its use through the teachings of Islam, ­others are in f­ avor of limiting excessive chastisement, which comes to be deemed unacceptable if administered without adhering to religiously prescribed procedures. “­People say, ‘The Prophet told us to use the cane’ (mtume akasema mikwaju), but r­ eally t­ here is no hitting,” Munir Kadhar Munir, one of the head sheikhs at the Zanzibar Muslim Acad­emy, Zanzibar’s central teacher training college, told me when I asked about his views as a religious authority on corporal punishment and child protection. We ­were sitting in the ­middle of an empty classroom on campus, which he chose as a location for our conversation. Drops of ­water ­were r­ unning down the cold ­bottle of soda that he sent a student to buy for me. In our conversation, he neither condemned corporal punishment as a practice

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altogether—as many c ­ hildren’s rights organ­izations do—­nor did he fully approve of it, unlike other Islamic leaders who frequently refer to the holy scriptures and the Prophet’s tradition. Instead, his concern was about the way in which it is applied: You have to read the hadith carefully. ­There are conditions (masharti) for hitting. Not like hitting a donkey. The cane is the last option (la mwisho). It should be soft and you should only hit in relevant places (pahala husika), two to three strokes, without leaving marks (alama). Some teachers take off the ­children’s clothes (wanawavua nguo) so the cane “enters” (iingie) better. But c ­ hildren need explanations (maelezo) instead of caning (bakora). Many say, “Without hitting, c ­ hildren’s minds ­don’t become active” (akili haichangaamki), but I disagree. Method ­matters. If the cane is your first option, you have no method at all.

As a widely known and respected Muslim leader in Zanzibar, Munir Kadhar Munir’s take on physical chastisement in child-­rearing represents a rather liberal position that is both supported but remains more frequently opposed by other Muslim Zanzibaris. His statement reflects the nonexistence of one monolithic “Islamic view” on child discipline, the presence of internal Islamic discussions on appropriate translation of the holy texts, and thus the inherent diversity of views on this ­matter within Zanzibar’s Muslim communities. Despite this variegated situation, Islam has become one of the central forces in internationally initiated negotiations of child protection standards and the use of corporal punishment according to ­human rights, or, more specifically, ­children’s rights standards. Religion—­a nd in Muslim-­majority Zanzibar this translates largely into Islam—­has become a defining notion in reference to which supporters and opponents of what has come to be spoken of as “child protection” position themselves. ­Whether they endorse or oppose the use of hitting as a means of discipline, all ­people I spoke to drew on Islamic thought to ­either reason for or against corporal punishment and to use as a framework for child protection approaches. Religious leaders are central figures of collaboration for child protection organ­ izations as they try dif­fer­ent routes to facilitate be­hav­ior change that may benefit young p ­ eople. A non-­A frican child protection activist in Zanzibar explained, “You can work with or against religion. In Af­ghan­i­stan we even changed the law. If you get t­ hese religious guys b ­ ehind you, it’s a massive step. Working with the Qur’an is key, ­because that is the language ­people understand ­here. Not CRC articles—­that ­doesn’t work.” As impor­tant as the collaboration with religious leaders was said to be, it was also repeatedly described as particularly complicated. Along ­these lines, a Zanzibari officer for child protection at the Ministry of Education told me,

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Working with religious leaders is a challenge. Muslims (waislamu) say that religion says a child should be smacked (mtoto achapwe). In some places ­people even said, “You are a kafir, you are against God and our religion.” Working with sheikhs helps b ­ ecause many p ­ eople reason with religion. When they say religion disagrees, ­because it tells us to hit (inasema tupige), he tells them “No!” and provides evidence from the Qur’an. It is impor­ tant to work with sheikhs and the Mufti’s Office, they understand society best. When a sheikh says something, p ­ eople believe it.

As impor­tant as it is to focus on the religious discourse and its actors, ­there are complications inherent in this approach. As a result, child protection approaches have been fragmented and sometimes mistranslated from theory into practice, which intensify opposition ­toward international child protection initiatives among many Zanzibaris who draw on Islam as their primary source of rationalizing the normative ­orders that structure their everyday realities. Therefore, I argue that the partial rejection of child protection programs against corporal punishment can ultimately only be understood by unraveling the impact of the dominant power of Islamic thought on child protection politics in the archipelago. That is why the implications of the tension born out of child protection interventions in Muslim-­majority settings are at the heart of this book. Even though some of my interlocutors considered child protection policies and practices as irreconcilable with Islam, many indeed supported internationally initiated efforts to hit ­children less frequently or not at all. ­There exists a wide variety of views on the ­matter of ­whether ­children should be hit and if so, how exactly it should be done in an “acceptable” manner. Despite the varied Islamic views of child protection and corporal punishment, child protection programs are perceived to overrule religious ideas on child-­rearing that build their claims on the Qur’an and the hadith, rather than on the CRC. This complex and multifaceted scenario poses a challenge for c ­hildren’s rights activists—­ both locals and expats—­because it complicates their effort to develop one approach that assures a decrease in often-­v iolent be­hav­ior ­toward ­children. I claim that ­there is an urgent need to diversify child rights development actors’ understandings of applied child protection: child protection policy makers and prac­ ti­ tion­ ers, particularly in Muslim-­ majority settings like Zanzibar, should increasingly attend to the role of religion or what the CRC calls “spiritual and moral development” in the constitution of young ­people’s well-­being. In impoverished contexts like Zanzibar, religion itself is one of the preventive and protective ­factors that bring ­children emotional and social benefits and community belonging (O’Leary, Hutchinson, and Squire 2015, 719). Therefore, if child protection frameworks overlook the role of religion—­and in Zanzibar this means the role of Islam—­they miss an opportunity to draw on the potential of protective approaches in Muslim socie­ties. What makes life meaningful for growing

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­children and adults in Zanzibar is, above all, Islam. Therefore, spirituality—or the amalgamation of pro­cesses through which ­people learn connectedness to ­others and the world, to be empathetic and responsible beings—­makes c ­ hildren “fit constructively, and to their own satisfaction, into the socie­ties in which they live” (Bourdillon 2014, 501f). It protects them from social exclusion and reproduces social cohesion. Thus, spirituality needs to gain more relevance in programs that target c ­ hildren so they do not interfere with how they are understood to become “good persons” and be able to cultivate successful relationships in Muslim socie­ties. Religious communities are impor­tant partners for protecting young p ­ eople, and Islamic teachings on child-­rearing have informed childcare in Muslim communities for centuries (Robinson and Hanmer 2014; Bunge 2014). The associated cultural dimensions of religion “are impor­tant social ­factors which influence governance, social practices and beliefs around childbearing, rearing, well-­being and protection” (Hutchinson et al. 2015, 396) and have the power to shape child protection practice in Zanzibar. It would thus be a missed opportunity if child rights activists failed to revise child protection agendas so they integrated and drew on Islamic knowledge to improve ­children’s safety in schools and beyond. A focus on the similarities and alignments between so-­called Western and Islamic values regarding child protection could positively contribute to decreasing fears of Westernization or a perceived decay of Muslim morals. Furthermore, recognizing that an exclusive reliance on Western-­based models interferes with the credibility and trust that facilitate interventions in Islamic communities (395) may open up new space for the genuine improvement of protection practice. Child protection interventions are not only moral and po­liti­cal but also ­legal undertakings. And a focus on c ­ hildren’s bodies thus implies an understanding of them as a loci of protection, socialisation and “the battleground for their rights” (Montgomery and Cornock 2013: 19). Law always plays a central role in the negotiations over child-­rearing practices: “Law provides an atlas of the child’s body, carving its intimate geography into licit and illicit zones of touch, a ‘narrow girdle.’ Like the bound­aries of states, the bound­aries of the body shift as law’s atlas is revised” (McGillivray 1997, 194). Religious law depends on the interpretations applied to the text by Islamic scholars that generate dif­fer­ent opinions on ­legal ­matters, especially when, as is the case in Zanzibar, ­there is no unifying Islamic stance on the appropriate application of physical chastisement. Corporal punishment is both legally and culturally accepted in Zanzibar, and efforts to ban it spark ­legal and ethical debate. As in most Islamic countries, Zanzibar’s sociolegal pluralism includes both Sharia law and common law. Unlike uniform and unequivocal formulations of common law or civil law systems, Islamic law can be understood as “a scholarly discourse consisting of the opinions of religious scholars, who argue, on the basis of the text of the Koran, the

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Prophetic hadith and the consensus of the first generations of Muslim scholars, what the law should be” (Peters 2005, 1; see Stockreiter 2015). Although secular codes regulate most ­legal ­matters, Islamic law is commonly referred to for ­family ­matters, marriage, divorce, custody, and inheritance. Sharia law also concerns the care and rights of c ­ hildren, drawing on the Qur’an as its central source (Rajabi-­Ardeshiri 2009, 477). This situation, which legitimizes both corporal punishment and child protection interventions, complicates a l­egal justification of protection programs. According to Rudolph Peters, “Sharia criminal law as applied t­ oday is in conflict with h ­ uman rights standards” in t­ hese areas: “the ban on cruel, degrading, or inhuman punishment,” “the princi­ple that all persons are equal before the law,” and c ­ hildren’s basic right “not to be subjected to the death penalty, life imprisonment and cruel, degrading or inhuman punishment” (2005, 174f). If “the prevailing interpretation of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment is that it includes all forms of corporal punishment,” this suggests that “corporal punishment is inconsistent with the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment” (175). Islamic guidelines, which allow the “appropriate” use of physical chastisement therefore contradict CRC-­based conceptions. The question of which rules to follow regarding the regulation of physical chastisement touches on the dynamic of the secular and the Sharia and what is considered appropriate to be the subject of legislation. Religious leaders often oppose c ­ hildren’s rights legislation, which they see as embodying universalized rights approaches that compromise Islamic regulations. This opposition between sociocultural and religious justifications for corporal punishment and the global child protection discourse explains why ­there remain ­legal disagreements over the question of corporal punishment, which affect all levels of program implementation. ­People’s trust in religious authorities and guidelines frequently outweigh their trust in government structures and activities, and rights-­based protection interventions against physical chastisement are contested for being understood as anti-­Islamic. This is not surprising considering that government ministries are largely financed by international development organ­izations that are viewed as promoting “Western” values and discourses that result in the decay of Zanzibari morals.

(Beyond) Zanzibar Although the specificities of the research context in Zanzibar undoubtedly influence the data this book pre­sents, it is this setting’s broader qualities—­structural poverty, a Muslim-­ majority context, and an arena in which national and international organ­i zations collaborate and compete with the government to build up and guarantee basic social services—­that make this unique story

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generalizable beyond the confines of the archipelago. Corporal punishment and child protection interventions against it generate considerable differences in opinion, not only between local and global communities but especially also within Zanzibari society and ­others across Muslim African and non-­A frican contexts. Zanzibari society is emblematic of many con­temporary settings in sub-­Saharan East Africa (Askew 2002; Caplan and Topan 2004): it is a context in which new social forms—­ like programs against physical chastisement—­ emerge, as citizens build their lives in innovative ways by choosing between “past and futurity,” often adapting old values to new circumstances promoted as impor­tant for “development (Appadurai 2004; Parkin 1994). Zanzibar is thus not unique but instead is a useful example of a Muslim-­ majority society that is undergoing major social transformation. The Zanzibari child protection actors I spoke to often emphasized the need to develop evidence-­ based protection interventions that build on approaches proven “successful” in other places. Nevertheless, simply drawing on “evidence” from other places may ignore contextual particularities, and I therefore underline the importance of cross-­cultural and cross-­topic comparative research, particularly from locations with similar social norms. The situation in the archipelago suggests parallels to states that have not yet banned corporal punishment in all settings and have Sharia law—­Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, and Malaysia—as well as countries without Sharia law, such as Nigeria, Indonesia, and Colombia. I believe it is equally productive to consider the comparative potential between Zanzibar and states that fully prohibit corporal punishment in ­these regions, such as South Sudan or Tunisia, or ­those with a clear commitment to ­legal reform on the ­matter, like Oman. Fi­nally, the findings in this book hold relevance beyond the confines of the archipelago and may translate to places where the concept of “re­spect” and the fear of its contestation hold equal significance. It is my hope that sharing findings between Muslim-­ majority contexts, such as the ­Middle East and North Africa, or countries like Indonesia and Malaysia can contribute to more robust approaches to protecting ­children in settings where “re­spect” defines everyday being. By focusing on the links between child protection policy/practice and religion, law, and well-­being in Zanzibar, this book closes a research gap by bringing to bear insights from intended child protection beneficiaries on spirituality, rights, and the “good life” from a vernacular perspective. Disputing Discipline demonstrates how building on insufficient understandings of t­ hese issues in discussions on physical chastisement results in challenging child protection programs. By bringing out the nuances of agreement and disagreement within Islam and between dif­fer­ent individual Muslims in Zanzibar, this book also contributes to a de-­exoticization of the “Muslim Other” (Soares and Osella 2009, 10) and questions some assumptions about African Muslims and the practice of corporal punishment. Therefore, the con­temporary efforts that Muslim Zanzibaris are

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making to produce themselves as modern religious subjects amidst a context of tension over who has power over ­children’s well-­being and care are central to this book.

Methodological Approach Drawing on eigh­teen months of ethnographic field research (January  2014—­ July 2015) in four primary schools and two Qur’anic schools in Zanzibar Town, I pre­sent the views of sixty young ­people between the ages of nine and seventeen and contrast them with the views of adults who play central roles in their lives—­ parents, teachers, religious leaders, and child protection policy makers and implementers. I argue that child protection interventions in Zanzibar overlook the contexts and ­factors in which corporal punishment makes sense and may even be considered a protection itself. My interlocutors’ accounts show how interventions based on insufficient understandings of physical chastisement generate opposition t­ oward child protection programs and result in a harmful decontextualization of childhood that interferes with Zanzibari c ­ hildren’s full achievement of social personhood. The young ­people’s accounts show how being caned as a form of chastisement frequently pre­sents an easier choice to navigate in everyday life than submitting to misappropriated alternative forms of “child protection”—­such as having to make a financial contribution, instead of receiving two to three cane strokes—in the constrained context of the Zanzibar education system. Following this, I demonstrate how the concept of child protection should be understood beyond a singular normative order of well-­being, be inclusive of non-­Western ideas of child-­rearing and morality, and reflect and respond to the relationality of ­children’s realities. I chose to prioritize both state and Qur’anic schools as research sites, ­because in Zanzibar both types are equally impor­tant spaces of learning for ­children and have recently also become key intervention sites for internationally initiated child protection programs (see figure I.3). Conducting research in schools allowed me to observe ­children’s daily encounters, pro­cesses, and challenges that constitute their lives. Far from being uncomplicated settings, schools are highly complex spaces for research that created their own specific challenges for both me and my young interlocutors (Fay 2018). In the field, my typical research day was split in half. I spent e ­ ither mornings or after­noons at my six research schools, which ­were all located in and around Stone Town, where I observed or conducted research tasks with my young interlocutors and interviewed their teachers. Two of the four primary schools ­were pi­lot schools in Save the ­Children’s Positive Discipline program to eliminate corporal punishment, whereas the two Qur’anic schools ­were not. The rest of the day I would spend with Save the ­Children staff or other authorities at child protection institutions, ranging from governmental to religious bodies, and at

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FIGUR E I.3  ​Observing in a classroom at a school on the outskirts of Stone Town,

2014.

workshops and meetings concerned with the establishment of the national child protection system. For all research activities I obtained informed consent through signed consent letters from both parents/guardians and child researchers. Additionally, before starting research tasks, I informed participants about the themes and intent of my study, ensuring them of confidentiality and their right to opt out at any point. On weekends, I regularly attended madrasa on Sunday mornings when it was more fully attended than during weekdays. In total I conducted forty-­eight semi­structured interviews with adults, as well as twelve focus group discussions, six draw-­and-­w rite workshops and three photovoice sessions with ­children and young ­people, and very many informal conversations with interlocutors of all age-­groups. The themes I usually asked my young research participants to keep in mind while drawing, writing, or taking photo­graphs w ­ ere childhood (wakati wa utotoni), manners/courtesy (adabu), punishment/chastisement (adhabu), and safety/protection (usalama/ulinzi). As could be expected, their expressions went far beyond t­ hese ideas. To gain a variegated insight into c ­ hildren’s and adults’ experiences of protection interventions, I combined intended-­to-be participatory and collaborative visual and sensory research tools with more traditional ethnographic methods like participant observation and interviews (Pink 2009). To go beyond a static interview approach I used drawing, photography/photovoice, and story and poetry writing to understand c ­ hildren’s experiences of protection and punishment (Toren 1999, 19; Wang 2006). My young research participants and I co-­analyzed all the stories, poems, drawings, and photo­graphs they produced. With adults I used a

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mixture of methods within an ethnographic approach that intertwined semi­ structured in-­depth interviews and focus group discussions with theory. Participant observation was my central tool of inquiry when in schools, at Save the ­Children’s office and workshops, as well as in p ­ eople’s homes and Stone Town’s community at large. My fluency in Swahili—­the local language of Zanzibar—­was my greatest asset during fieldwork and enabled me to conduct interviews and apply translation and discourse analy­sis without research assistants. My language skills became a counterpart to my obvious non-­Swahili heritage and allowed me insights into society that may have been constrained by assumptions provoked by my appearance. A Swahili language lens thus allowed me to grasp the heterogeneity and nuances of discussions on Islam in Zanzibar t­ oday; on a broader level, it revealed the need to move beyond the dominant Arabic-­language focus to unravel what is at stake in con­temporary Muslim socie­ties that make greater use of their vernacular than of Arabic to interpret and discuss the canon.

Structure of the Book Disputing Discipline asks ­these questions: Why do well-­intending child protection interventions face opposition in Zanzibar? What are ­children’s and adults’ understandings of childhood, discipline, punishment, and protection in educational settings? How are protection programs, and ­people’s perceptions of them, embedded in social relations that are themselves informed by age and gender, embodied and affective, and defined by an interwovenness of dif­fer­ent sets of values and norms that unites universalized, religious, and cultural values and norms? What other discourses do c ­ hildren’s worldviews contrast with, and how do national and global power relations influence ­these differences? How can decolonial thinking help rearrange hierarchies of knowledge? How can universalized discourses of protection, personhood, and childhood refrain from overruling Zanzibari ­children’s and adults’ ideas about ­these themes and, as a result, from making their thoughts appear as of lesser value or relevance? And how, ultimately, can ­children’s protection and well-­being be improved? To address ­these questions, the book establishes a Zanzibari-­Swahili cosmology of childhood revolving around a comprehensive understanding of the concept of protection: What does it mean to be young, to grow up, and to be safe in Zanzibar? It brings this Swahili Weltanschauung into conversation with other discourses outside of it: What does vio­lence mean and to whom, what are the nuances of discipline, and how can young p ­ eople’s participation drive and hinder protection? In this introduction I laid out the scope of the topic of child protection and physical chastisement in a global context and in Zanzibar. Against the backdrop of some key developments in the field of child protection, I addressed the

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relevance of the Zanzibar case to the wider study of Africa regarding questions of education, Islam, child-­rearing, vio­lence, and poverty. I opened the discussion by considering the broadest effects of protection and punishment in Zanzibar—on ethical debate and the moral revolution—­and the extent to which ­people’s perspectives on ­children’s experiences of pain are changing. In this context I set up my argument, briefly touched on some of the complexities of fieldwork and methodology, and concluded with this overview of the book. In chapter 1 (“Being Young in Zanzibar”) I introduce the reader to the essential facts of what it means to be a young person in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Through narratives by ­children, young ­people, and adults equally, I reconstruct what childhood means; where, when, and how its concepts take shape; and how it is negotiated in relation to other ­children and adults, as well as in the context of ­children’s rights frameworks. I draw on the ideas of c ­ hildren’s responsibilities and re­spect alongside the social practice of greeting to illustrate the continuously changing meaning of being young. Being “good” or disciplined and pious evolve as central ideas that illustrate the multidimensionality and fluidity of the notion of the “child” in Zanzibar. Chapter 2 (“Childhood with/out Punishment”) addresses the vari­ous uses and interpretations of ­children’s corporal punishment in Zanzibar ­today. How Zanzibari c ­ hildren learn to be in the world and are made to fit into it lie at the heart of this second chapter. Teachers’, child protection actors’, and religious leaders’ conceptualizations of “appropriate” chastisement—­ combined with young and older Zanzibaris’ differentiations between kupiga (hitting) and kuchapa (smacking)—­reveal the diversity of perspectives on the practice. Via a brief excursus on the co-­constructing socialization concepts of adabu (discipline) and adhabu (punishment), which are key to understanding person formation in the archipelago, I unravel their fuzzy relationship to the normalization of physical chastisement. In chapter 3 (“­Children and Child Protection”) I shift the view t­ oward the central object of this book: child protection. Through the dominant discursive spheres that influence everyday life in Zanzibar—­the religious realm of Islam, the cultural domain of the Swahili, and the (non)governmental realm of international development—­I explore how protection and childcare are understood according to each mode of knowing. Ultimately, this brings to light the frequent incompatibilities and tension between religious, cultural, and aid conceptualizations and discourses of protection. Chapter  4 (“Child Protection in Zanzibar Schools”) offers ethnographic insights on the reception of Save the ­Children’s anti-­corporal punishment (“Positive Discipline”) program in one primary school in Zanzibar Town. Through the eyes of students and their teachers, I recount their personal experiences based on a theoretical understanding of how child protection translates into practice. ­Children’s feedback notes that w ­ ere accumulated in so-­called Suggestion Boxes

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in ten pi­lot schools over a period of two years, as well as teachers’ views, illustrate the coexistence of dif­fer­ent systems of thought about discipline and punishment in educational settings and elucidate the tension I argue exists between child protection aspirations and the responding real­ity. In chapter 5 (“Gender, Islam, and Child Protection”), I explore the feminization of child protection and focus on the exclusion of boys from child protection discourses and practices. Building on Zanzibari notions of gender, Islam (Stiles and Thompson 2015), and the body (Khuri 2001) in the public and private spheres, I show how boys’ and girls’ protection are approached in an unequal manner. I focus on the physical abuse of boys and how this taboo in society is a pressing protection issue. This unravels the links between child protection and the discourse of w ­ omen’s rights (Todres 2017) and questions the conceptual equation of ­women with ­children as I encountered it in Zanzibar. In chapter 6 (“Decolonizing Child Protection”) I deconstruct the hierarchy of protection practices that build on universalized ideas of well-­being in light of a discussion around decolonization, Westernization, and secularization. ­A fter discussing notions of decolonization as a form of liberation from ideas enforced on p ­ eople to create feelings of inferiority, I consider—­with Lila Abu-­Lughod (2013) in mind—­whether Zanzibari c ­ hildren ­really need saving. This leads me to suggest rearranging the discursive hierarchies of protection knowledge according to the relevance that protection prac­ti­tion­ers attribute to them in Zanzibar. As a dif­fer­ent path to “liberation,” which comes with both risks and potentials, a decolonization of current forms of child protection ­under consideration based on more inclusive notions of “modernity” may allow more balanced and less hegemonic interventions. In chapter 7 (“Beyond Well-­being, t­ oward ­Children”), I draw together the main arguments of the book and link them to ­children’s ideas about the ­f uture as being “the nation of tomorrow,” thereby viewing protection practices as ultimately affecting c ­ hildren’s f­ utures and general well-­being in society. As a starting point for ­these final considerations, I revisit the ­earlier discussion of re­spect but view it on a broader societal level and in closer connection to empathy. To conclude in a way that reflects what ­children and adults have shared with me, I end the book by proposing four essential focus areas for policy innovation—­ assuring health and well-­being, guaranteeing parental and community care, preventing vio­lence and poverty, and upholding morality and norms; I then share my thoughts on the ­f uture of child protection and ­children’s own evaluation of the research proj­ect.

1 Being Young in Zanzibar

This is an account of some ordinary c­ hildren’s everyday experiences in one city on one island in a country in Africa. It represents a balancing act between hewing to geo­graph­i­cal particularities—­because what the ­children I met think about their lives is ­shaped by how their experiences are constituted in this specific place—­a nd drawing parallels and mapping patterns between events that are never singular to one place, but are always specific to the time of being young. In any context, a child’s development is influenced by multiple ele­ments and relations, all variable or scalar, which do not necessarily function together in one social field only. In Zanzibar, as elsewhere, t­ here are vari­ous understandings of what constitutes c ­ hildren, childhood, and personhood. In what follows I explore the multidimensionality of what “­children” as “plural and heterogeneous categories” (De Boeck and Honwana 2005, 1) imagine and are i­magined to be and what being a child and a person can mean in Zanzibar. I show how such multifaceted narratives are negotiated in a constantly changing web of meanings, actions, and interpretations and are imprinted by religious, cultural, and po­liti­ cal regimes of thought (Richards 1956; Montgomery 2008). In this first chapter, I begin the exploration of how best to protect and discipline ­children in Zanzibari schools and society by looking at what “cultural invention” (Kessel and Siegel 1983) or social constructs we are talking about when speaking of ­children and childhood in Zanzibar. All ­human socie­ties recognize distinctions between ­children and adults, as well as between ­children’s abilities to learn and participate in activities of the community as they grow and develop (LeVine and New 2008, 3). Therefore, I explore the questions at stake in terms of a social ecological approach concerned with the interplay and relationships between individuals, communities, and history. Above all, I acknowledge the nonfixed state that being young and experiencing childhood in Zanzibar imply and explore how childhood is constructed historically and through ideas 23

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of aging and transition, how it constitutes a realm of learning, how c ­ hildren are both social “beings” and “becomings” who learn to display re­spect and manners, and fi­nally how they are ­imagined translocally at the intersection of tropes of responsibilities and rights. By starting from p ­ eople’s vari­ous assumptions about childhood, it becomes pos­si­ble to understand the continuously changing meanings of being young in Zanzibar and also how p ­ eople think about c ­ hildren’s protection.

Childhood as a Realm of Histories and Aging Historical Constructions of Childhood ­There is no such ­thing as a unified Zanzibari attitude on ­children or childhood. Both concepts are continually changing products of par­tic­u­lar historical circumstances and are best understood in relation to them. The Zanzibar Revolution in 1964, the role of Islam, and the question of ethnicity are indispensable to an understanding of Zanzibar’s culture and history (Nisula 1999, 14). ­Because ­children reflect the complexities of the worlds they inhabit, Zanzibar’s historical and cultural hybridity is therefore fundamental to thinking about ­children and childhood in the archipelago. All c ­ hildren are born into specific social environments and affected by historical constructs that undergo changes and reinterpretations over time (Schwarzman 1978, 9). ­These words—­“A child should receive education to study worldly matters”—­ are written on twelve-­ year-­ old Fatma’s photo­ graph of three girls in white headscarves writing in their notebooks. Another of her photos shows two girls laughing brightly, with this caption: “A child should be happy to continue her studies.” My young interlocutors considered education a core right and distinguished worldly education (elimu ya kidunia) at state schools from religious education (elimu ya kidini) delivered at the madrasa. Ruwaida (age ten) explained, “­Children learn at school, madrasa, and tuition [after-­school supplementary edu­ other and f­ather help cation] so they can live a good life (maisha mazuri). M ­children pay their fees.” Her linking education, economic status, and parents as providers indicates the relationality that shapes ­children’s lives. Over the centuries, Zanzibar and its conceptions of childhood w ­ ere influenced by a variety of traders and colonial powers. Zanzibar was on a key trade route between the East African Coast, the ­M iddle East, and India and was also a hub of slave trade. Foreign systems of forceful rule, among which the Omanis and the British took center stage, had their impact. ­Children growing up during the days of the Sultan of Zanzibar and Oman—­ who relocated his empire’s center from Muscat to the archipelago in the 1840s—­experienced childhood differently than t­hose raised ­under the British Protectorate from 1890. Zanzibar gained in­de­pen­dence in 1963, followed by the violent revolution of 1964  in the following year, and then mainland Tanganyika and the



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islands of Zanzibar w ­ ere united u ­ nder a socialist government: all ­these strands have and continue to influence c ­ hildren’s realities (Lofchie 1965; Maliyamkono 2000; Parkin 1995). The Zanzibar educational system and childhood memories are interwoven with Zanzibar’s colonized past and frequently linked to questions of ethnicity. “The construction of a racial state” in Zanzibar began not with the British conquest in 1890 but in the late seventeenth ­century with Omani Arabs’ conquering of the country that strengthened the “po­liti­cal culture of Arabocentrism” (Glassman 2011, 23). With the overthrow of the sultan in 1964 in what is known as the Zanzibar Revolution, ethnic conflict and persecution peaked; “prob­ably one-­third of all Arabs on Unguja Island” ­were ­either killed or forced into exile (Burgess 2009, 1). This ethnic cleansing was followed by “their mass exclusion from government employment” (1), which largely still prevails. The ousting of the Omani rulers stirred ethnic animosity, which found expression throughout the school curriculum. Power relationships changed dramatically, and a socialist government “of mainly African descent ruled Zanzibar: Arab-­ness became disqualifying, African-­ness was qualifying and the more public aspects of Islamic activity and rituals ­were discouraged and even condemned” (Larsen 2004, 127). Ramadan, a friend in his early thirties who self-­ identifies as of Arab descent, recalled his early school years in the late 1980s when he experienced a drastic change in how Arabs w ­ ere treated: “I was one of the few Arab kids in class. Teachers made fun of us. They always said that Arab ­women swept the floors with their breasts. It was so embarrassing.” As in other East African states, like Rwanda and ­Kenya, where genocides or interethnic vio­ lence occurred in the not-­so-­distant past, in Zanzibar ­today ethnicity is largely a taboo topic, and when ­people are asked about ethnic discrimination, they usually deny its existence. How memories of the Zanzibar Revolution are constructed—­“as ­either the original sin or the triumph of the in­de­pen­dence era” (Burgess 2009, 2)—­continues to determine with whom Zanzibaris associate. Along the Swahili coast before the revolution, Arabs ­were considered superior to non-­A rabs in echoes of the colonial racial paradigm that depicted Arabs as landowners, Indians as merchants, and “the African [as] the downtrodden” (Sheriff 2001, 30; Caplan 1976, 22). In Zanzibar this stereotyping is still reflected in local museums’ privileging of Omani history and identity (Boswell 2011, 64), while references to the socialist revolution and its effects on con­temporary society remain absent from displays. Yet I was repeatedly told statements like this one by Amal, a young social worker in her twenties: “­There is no space for ‘tribes’ (makabila) t­ oday, b ­ ecause Zanzibar does not have any.” Another local female aid worker, possibly in her forties, supported this view, telling me that “­people follow culture (utamaduni) ­here, but t­ here are no ethnic groups. Over the years ­people have mixed (wamechanganya), so you cannot differentiate between them” (kuwatenganisha).

26

DISPUTING DISCIPLINE

The extraordinary complexity of Zanzibar as neither exclusively “African, Arabian or Indian but partaking of each of ­these” (Parkin 1995, 201) influences its ­imagined geo­graph­i­cal placement. As a non-­A frican development worker told me, “Zanzibar ­isn’t Africa; it’s the Arab world in Africa.” Although Zanzibar is of course part of Africa, this trope implies that additional geo­graph­i­cal and ideological categorizations may better describe the archipelago. In fact, I often encountered statements that Zanzibar was more like ­Middle Eastern and Arab states than continental African countries or even mainland Tanzania. ­Because of Zanzibar’s past as “an Arab colonial state” (Middleton and Campbell 1965, 1), Swahili identity t­ oday entails multiple categories that range from mixed African and Arab descent to living primarily in urban areas and speaking Swahili (Fair 2001, 30). Thus, Swahili speakers may si­mul­ta­neously identify as African and/or Arab, Persian, or Indian (Glassman 2011, 4f). This nonstatic Swahili identity embodies an ongoing social pro­cess that makes Swahili society “the epitome of ethnic fluidity and racial indeterminacy” (Glassman 2011, 4f; Eastman 1971). Swahili p ­ eople have always been perceived as a fluid population and never claimed one cohesive ethnic identity (Ntarangwi 2003, 47; Fair 2001, 31). Swahili worldviews have been described as plural and shifting and reflect the cosmopolitan nature of many Indian Ocean socie­ties (Kresse and Simpson 2009; Loimeier and Seesemann 2006, 1). Multiple descent lines, the integration of Islam into Zanzibari-­Swahili culture, and other influences reflect the culture’s syncretic nature and contribute to Swahili ­people often being regarded more Arab than African. Childcare, punishment, and protection are affected by ­these ­factors that, as a complex interlocking puzzle, create the social construction of childhood in Zanzibar.

Con­temporary Constructions of Childhood The central place of Islamic ideas about childcare and socialization in Zanzibaris’ conceptualization of c ­ hildren distinguishes it from the notion of childhood held by residents in mainland Tanzania.1 Even though Zanzibar has its own government with decision making power over local m ­ atters, decisions concerning the country as a whole—­the United Republic of Tanzania—­are made by the government of the United Republic that has authority over all ­union ­matters; this frequently leaves Zanzibaris feeling they are still colonial subjects and have no voice (Mwakikagile 2008). Their dependence on mainland Tanzania has long been a ­matter of po­liti­cal debate, and repeated demands have been made to regain the archipelago’s in­de­pen­dence. “Nowadays, c ­ hildren are being stolen (wanaibiwa), and it all started in the mainland” (bara), said Ukdi Faiza, a former madrasa teacher, as she expressed her worries about threats to ­children and located them outside of Zanzibar. Likewise, regarding corporal punishment, she claimed that “many cases of ­children being severely harmed (kuumizwa vibaya) from being beaten ­don’t happen h ­ ere. They come from the mainland, where they punish



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harshly (wanatoa adhabu kubwa) and where men hit ­women much more.” On a similar note, my friend Kauthar’s grand­mother, originally from Pemba but now living in Dar es Salaam, emphasized dismissingly that “in Dar ­there is no morality” (akhlaq). By using the Arabic term for ethics, instead of the Swahili term (maadili), she emphasized that this morality is Islamic, guiding the acceptable Muslim way of life. Islamic revivalist movements like Uamsho (Awakening) use dissatisfaction with Zanzibar’s po­liti­cal status to mobilize support by intertwining religious and po­liti­cal demands: the creation of an official Muslim state through an Islamic revival, which is increasingly taking on a fundamentalist character (Turner 2009; Parkin 1995). This “revival of Islamic religiosity” (Keshodkar 2013, 9) has also recently been expressed in anti-­Christian public missionary preaching (Ahmed 2008, 4) and is materialized in segregation; for example, when Muslim ­children are instructed not to spend time with non-­Muslim c ­ hildren (Olsson 2019, 77). Thus, efforts to protect young ­people from practices that may harm them need to be understood against this complex framework of Zanzibar’s sociopo­liti­cal makeup that itself is a source of intergroup tensions.

Puberty and Marriage as “Age” and Transition Markers Sociocultural ideas about childhood w ­ ere most clearly observable in my research participants’ conceptualizations of puberty and marriage as “age” and transition markers. Multiple and often gendered meanings, which are critically influenced by Islam, are attached to ­children’s ages and their pro­cess of maturation. Definitions of the period from birth to “adulthood” as applied to male and female ­children depend on the lens applied to understanding ­these ideas. As Veena Das has emphasized, the categories of “child” and “adult” are not stable: “the bound­ aries of childhood and adulthood are not given in advance” but are indeed “created in the context of a ­ ctual interactions between adults and ­children” (2015b, 79). How ­children in Zanzibar move through stages to adulthood is based not on chronological age but on physical and life status changes, as shared in a conversation with Bi Muna, one of my local Swahili teachers of many years: Childhood lasted ­until a child got married (anaolewa2). ­Until a husband becomes your supervisor (msimamizi), you are ­under her parents’ protection. When you reach puberty (kubaleghe), then physically (kimwili) you are an adult (mtu mzima), but regarding your environment (mazingira) you remain a child ­until you marry. This is dif­fer­ent to the po­liti­cal view (mtizamo ya kisiasa) where you reach adulthood at the age of eigh­teen. You remain a child even u ­ ntil twenty or thirty, if you are still being fed (ukilishwa) by your m ­ other.

As evident from her explanation, what w ­ ere often presented to me as “cultural” or “local” (kitamaduni/kienyeji) understandings of how young p ­ eople

28

DISPUTING DISCIPLINE

transition through life stages draw on the concept of puberty (kubaleghe), with the age at which it begins depending on gender. Puberty marks the physical end of being a child (mtoto) and the transformation into a youth (kijana), a unique and individual transitional temporal unit. Getting married (kuoa/kuolewa), however, was one marker of the end of childhood. A local child rights development worker explained how she understands a child to become an adult: Childhood (utoto) lasts from being born (kuzaliwa) ­until puberty (kub­ aleghe) at fourteen or fifteen, when you become an adult (mtu mzima) and can be married (kuolewa). In Islam childhood lasts from zero to fifteen years. Before reaching puberty, c ­ hildren have no sins (dhambi), but from then onward when you sin (ukifanya dhambi), it counts (utaandikiwa dhambi). If you ­aren’t married (kuolewa/kuoa) and you live at home, you remain a child. That is the border (mstari). ­A fter that you are an adult. Even if you are twenty-­five. If you are not married, you are still a child, both men and ­women.

Her elaboration combines the nonlinearity and unboundedness to specific age concepts of kubaleghe3 and marriage as central to categorizing childhood. Islam, referencing the Qur’an and hadith,4 institutes the first symbolic differentiation made between male and female c ­ hildren—­t wo goats are slaughtered at a boy’s birth versus only one at a girl’s birth—­reinforcing par­tic­u­lar ideas about man-­ and womanhood. ­After reaching puberty—­between the ages of nine and fifteen—­ female and male c ­ hildren are separated in both domestic and public spheres. Echoing Bi Muna’s explanation and emphasizing the relevance of personhood (utu) as the aim of socialization, puberty—­the point in time “when your sins start counting”—­represents both childhood’s end and when “you become h ­ uman” (Mitchell 2014, 52). For girls this time is marked by the onset of menstruation (kuvunja ungo), which in the past indicated their marriageability. Ten-­year-­old Ruwaida shared with me her understanding of what childhood means: Childhood starts when you are born u ­ ntil age fifteen. Boys are c ­ hildren ­until they reach fifteen years and girls when they turn fourteen. From then on Muslim boys and girls are called adolescents (mabalehe). During  their childhood (utoto) they learn dif­fer­ent t­hings. Their parents teach them so to help them live an adequate life (maisha yatakayofaa) in the ­f uture.

According to ­these explanations, Zanzibari boys’ and girls’ childhoods end at dif­fer­ent times (Montgomery 2008, 53). Thus, it is gender and the moment of marriage, rather than “chronological age, biological changes or socially recognized rites of passage” (Montgomery 2005, 478), that determine the length of childhood.



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Religion also structures c ­ hildren’s development. Vari­ous religious leaders I worked with referred to what they called the ­Triple Seven Hadith, which indicates three key life stages that Muslim ­children pass through as they become adults: from birth u ­ ntil age twenty-­one, each stage lasts seven years. As Sheikh Mubarak—­a well-­k nown Zanzibari religious leader and key partner to Save the ­Children in establishing the Zanzibari child protection system—­told me, in each stage a child has par­tic­u­lar needs that demand specific forms of child-­rearing (referring to the Qur’an sura 26, verse 18, and hadith Musaffaab (kumsaba’an): About child rearing (malezi ya mtoto) the Prophet (saw) said: “Play with them (chezeni nao) in the first seven years, teach them (waelimisheni) from the age of seven, and befriend them (wafanyeni marafiki) during the third stage.” From birth ­until age seven, be close to them, listen to them and play with them.5 From seven to fourteen, rear them (kumlea), teach them (kumsomesha), and give them education (elimu) and knowledge (taaluma). From fourteen to twenty-­one ­children start to sit with the elders (kukaa na wazee) and being taught lessons (mafunzo). Start treating them as friends (mfanye marafiki) and do not hide anything from them (humfichi kitu). ­A fter passing through ­these stages they are an adult (mtu mzima).

Islam structures t­ hese sociocultural constructions of Zanzibari childhood, which also inevitably reflect cultural (kitamaduni) or more localized aspects, as well as what is referred to as “tradition/custom” (mila/desturi)—­the terms my research participants used to differentiate between the two. They are so interwoven that sometimes this distinction is difficult to make.

Childhood as a Space and Time of Learning Childhood as a social space is structured by a range of social institutions. In Zanzibar as elsewhere, the school is a key institution “through which the state inculcated its own standardized notion of childhood” (Decker 2015, 41). The curriculum of Zanzibari state schools ­today is based on the one introduced during the British Empire. The framework of institutional knowledge transmission thus remains imprinted by the colonized past. In addition to attending state schools, all Muslim c ­ hildren, and even some of the approximately 1 ­percent of c ­ hildren from other denominations, spend about 50 ­percent of their instruction time at a Qur’anic school (madrasa or chuo).6 ­These private or community-­based religious schools are seldom registered with the government or staffed with certified teachers; often, older and more advanced students teach younger ones. Considering the amount of time c ­ hildren spend in madrasas, they are of crucial importance in “the formation of Muslim childhood” (Rajabi-­A rdeshiri 2011, 692). Thus, I observed c ­ hildren in both state schools and madrasas.

30

DISPUTING DISCIPLINE

Vernacular Forms of Education Dif­fer­ent forms of vernacular education existed long before institutionalized schooling was established by the colonial powers in the late nineteenth c ­ entury. ­Until then, “initiation schools” had served as realms of learning for male and female ­children. Yet, despite the importance of differentiating childhood from adulthood with the onset of adolescence, the decline of initiation rituals that used to accompany young ­people’s social transformation is impor­tant to note. Initiation rites of unyago for girls and jando for boys played central roles in marking young Zanzibaris’ passage through life stages. The arrival of Western schools in the late nineteenth ­century with the British colonial power threatened “both Quranic and initiation schools” (Decker 2014: 27). German and British colonialism influenced education systems, government, and law along the Swahili coast, so that “­today we find ‘traditional’ systems of education such as unyago (a puberty ritual for girls) alongside local Islamic schools (vyuo [sg. chuo] or madarasa [lit. classes]) and government-­r un schools (shule or skuli) modelled ­a fter the British system” (Stiles and Thompson 2015: 7f). ­Today the initiation rites have largely dis­appeared and with an increasingly conservative Islam are frequently rejected for “dangerously” encouraging premarital sexual engagement. They have repeatedly been considered “un-­Islamic’ for being purely ‘traditional’ (mila) and hence irreconcilable with adequate piety, or even as constituting an antithesis between Islamic sunna7 and ‘African’ tradition. The male initiation rite of jando is more than just a rite of circumcision. It is a form of moral education and learning about sociality in Zanzibari society, as well as a means of preparing boys for adulthood: During jando boys around the age of fourteen also learn valuable life skills. Bi Amina, a teacher at the State University of Zanzibar (SUZA) in her late forties, explained the rite: Jando is done to boys and usually takes places outside of the city in a village or the bush (porini), where they are circumcised (kufanyiwa tohara).8 In the past (zamani) boys w ­ ere circumcised from age seven onward, ­because jando was part of their training (mafunzo) about the body’s changes during adolescence. You w ­ ere circumcised and taught dif­fer­ent ­things. Boys learned about bravery (ujasiri) to face prob­lems, how to work, to have re­spect, to love their parents, and how to live with a w ­ oman. They stayed between one to three weeks with the circumciser (ngariba). He taught them morals (maadili) like respecting their elders (kuwaheshimu wakubwa), being strong (kuwa shupavu), and accountable (uwajibikaji), and about their responsibility (majukumu) of protecting their families (familia), clans (ukoo) and “tribe” (kabila). ­Those lessons introduced the youth (kijana) into adulthood (utu uzima [lit. full personhood]). When they recovered (mpaka watapoa) ­there ­were cele­brations. T ­ oday circumcisions



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are done at hospitals between seven days to a month or a year a ­ fter birth. Therefore, boys ­don’t get this education anymore, but some of the madra­ sas provide similar lessons.

For girls, the initiation rite, unyago, served a similar purpose, as Bi Amina shared: With unyago a girl becomes an adult (mtu mzima). It is held before she starts menstruating (kuvunja ungo). The girl is taken to an instructor (somo) chosen by her f­ amily—­often a grand­mother or an aunt. She stays indoors for seven days while being taught to look a ­ fter herself (kujihifa­ dhi): keeping her menstrual blood from staining her clothes, cleaning herself (kujisafisha/kujitoharisha), and respecting herself (kujiheshimu) and ­others. She learns to protect herself (kujilinda) and to not have sexual intercourse with boys (asiwe na mashirikiano ya kimwili).9 You learn taking care of the h ­ ouse and looking a ­ fter c ­ hildren (kutunza watoto). ­A fter starting menstruation, a girl is called mwari and learns to identify (kujit­ ambua) as an adult. She visits the somo three times during the first three months of her period (hedhi). The day she comes outside again, t­ here is a cele­bration and the drums called unyago are played. A few days before marriage the unyago happens again to teach her how to be a good wife (mke mwema), how to have sex (tendo la ndoa)10 with her husband and to massage him (kusinga mume). ­Today unyago has declined (imeondoka sana) and depends on the ­family. ­Children are taught about their changes during puberty at madrasa and at school.

Jando and unyago ­ were primary institutions through which boys and girls acquired knowledge about woman-­and manhood. Audrey Richards’s description of the chisungu initiation ceremony in Zambia emphasized that “­women’s magical knowledge, owned and used by ­women,” transforms girls into ­women and that successful womanhood is something that is taught and learned and not a “ ‘natu­ral’ attribute”: girls who have not had their chisungu performed are considered “rubbish” (1956, xxxiv). With the establishment of British colonial girls’ schools in Zanzibar in 1927, the school system started operating as the primary weapon of the state against indigenous initiation ceremonies that marked the “transition from girlhood to womanhood” (Decker 2015, 33); the schools eventually replaced locally owned customs with externally imposed knowledge. According to the colonial regime, deauthorizing the initiation instructors who guided girls through maturation apparently served to protect young girls from “early marriage and premature exposure to sex” (41). More than an attack against local custom, it was “part of a colonial campaign to inculcate ‘Western’ understandings of age and childhood” by overpowering local “biocultural benchmarks (puberty, initiation, marriage, and motherhood)” (33–34) that ­were inherent to Swahili conceptualizations of

32

DISPUTING DISCIPLINE

childhood and adulthood. Part of the colonial schools’ aim “to institutionalize quantifiable stages of childhood” (34) was to replace local indicators of maturation with mea­sur­ing maturation according to numerical age and years of education. ­Today both initiation rites have almost dis­appeared, certainly in urban Zanzibar; they are performed more frequently in the villages where, as many in­for­ mants suggested, the combination of Islamic and “traditional” practice is less contested.

Institutionalized Spaces of Learning My young interlocutors identify state school, religious school, and after-­school tuition (tutoring) as the three educational spaces they attend regularly, ­either attending state school in the morning and madrasa in the after­noon, or vice versa, with changes in schedule occurring ­every few weeks.11 Most c ­ hildren start their education at age four or five by attending madrasa and nursery schools and enter primary school about two years ­later. Although state primary schools are government regulated,12 ­there is no institutionalized regulation of Qur’anic schools. Instead, each madrasa has its own system and curriculum, teaching the Qur’an, Arabic, religious history, math, and En­glish in a variety of ways and with dif­fer­ent amounts of time allocated to each subject. “Many parents take their ­children to a madrasa (vyuo, sg. chuo) where all subjects are taught b ­ ecause that is like extra tutoring for their ­children,” Bi Muna told me as we discussed systems of education. A local development worker gave this explanation of c ­ hildren’s daily routines: ­Children are very busy in Zanzibar. They go to madrasa Saturday to Thursday and then have two days to rest. From Monday ­until Thursday they are in school and madrasa. Saturday and Sunday only at madrasa. Thursday and Friday only at school. And ­there is tuition as well. Some madrasas have a full curriculum, which means double or ­triple schooling ­children. I think it’s too much.

Having under­gone the same system as a child, this aid worker had a negative view on ­children’s “­triple schooling” b ­ ecause of the high demands it places on young ­people. C ­ hildren themselves recounted their daily routines and educational responsibilities less critically. When asked to describe a typical day in their lives, boys’ and girls’ accounts ­were usually similar, a main difference being that girls more often mentioned chores like washing clothes. All the accounts reflect the multiple venues of schooling and their many tasks they are required to do each day. Although t­ hese examples show the vari­ous involvements c ­ hildren navigate in their everyday lives and emphasize the importance of dif­fer­ent learning spaces—­school, madrasa, and tuition—­they may not apply to all Zanzibari ­children’s experiences, particularly to non-­Muslim ­children and ­children living



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in more rural settings. Yussuf, a twelve-­year-­old student from Maulidi Primary School, told me his daily schedule: At 5 A.M. I go to the bathroom to get ready and then to the mosque. ­A fter returning I make my bed and help with ­house­work. Then I eat breakfast, put on my school uniform, and go to school (skuli). Afterwards I eat lunch and rest. I wake up at 2.30

P.M.

and go to madrasa (chuoni). We read for

half an hour and at 4 P.M. we have a break (risesi). ­A fter prayers, we study some more and go home. At 6 P.M. I go to the mosque again. At 7 P.M. I have tuition (twisheni). ­A fter half an hour I go home for dinner. Before sleeping I watch some TV.

Amira, a thirteen-­year-­old student at Miembe Mirefu school, offers insights into her schedule and the dif­fer­ent meanings of each day of the week: I wake up at 5.30 A.M. At 6.30 A.M., ­after prayers and cleaning, I eat and go to school. Afterward I do ­house­work. At 2.30 P.M. I go to madrasa (chuoni) and return at 5.30

P.M.

to eat dinner and wash myself. I pray again and

rest ­until 7 P.M. Then I go to tuition (tuisheni) u ­ ntil 8.30 P.M. I rest and watch tele­v i­sion ­until 9

P.M.

before sleeping. On Thursdays and Fridays, I wash

my clothes ­after school, ­because ­there is no madrasa. Fridays, I groom my hair and visit friends and f­ amily. On Saturday morning and eve­ning I go to madrasa. On Sunday I rest ­because ­there is no madrasa in the eve­ning.

Although t­ hese examples are of course not typical for ­every child in Zanzibar, they nevertheless show the vari­ous involvements ­children navigate in their everyday lives and emphasize the importance of dif­fer­ent learning spaces—­ school, madrasa, and tuition. The accounts suggest a potential conflict between state and religious school systems—­both experienced alongside each other with equal relevance to the majority of the Zanzibari urban Muslim community, the focus of this research. State school classes meet from Monday to Friday, based on a secular British curriculum and conceptualization of time; the religious school system operates alongside the secular school system during the week (except Fridays) and a ­ fter non-­religious school hours, as well as on weekends when according to the state curriculum ­children are “off’ school. A weekend without any type of educational activity is seldom known to Zanzibari ­children.

­Children as Social Beings and Becomings: Of Re­spect and Manners “A Child Is Someone Who Greets the Elders” Young p ­ eople who inhabit the temporal space of childhood that is, as I have shown, defined by dif­fer­ent historical experiences, ideas of child development, and systems of education, cannot simply be considered as “adults-­in-­the-­making.”

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DISPUTING DISCIPLINE

Such a limiting perspective does not value them for the young ­people they are and for what they can offer in the pre­sent (Adams 2014, 164). Therefore, I consider the young ­people who are at the heart of this book as both social beings and becomings at the same time, ­because they are social actors in the spaces they dwell in (Uprichard 2008). Such an acknowl­edgment of their agency as “beings” helps us recognize how they actively partake in reproducing cultural pro­cesses and societal norms. In Zanzibar, childhood is defined by “learning,” and central to ­children’s learning are pro­cesses of becoming social beings in communities. Teaching “the value of sociability” is a key goal of ­every child-­rearing agenda (Gottlieb 2004, 137). Zanzibari c ­ hildren’s sociality is perhaps best explored by focusing on one specific theme that emerged from the data generated by the young students: the concept of “greeting.” Greeting expresses the under­lying conceptualization of a child as an essentially social being who possesses two of the characteristics ­every Zanzibari-­Swahili person must hold and display: re­spect (heshima) and manners (adabu). Rarely viewed as free-­standing entities, Zanzibari ­children have always been perceived as relational. Hence, ­children’s sociality—­their being in relation to ­others—­represents my interlocutors’ associations with childhood and ­children. ­These images that depict c ­ hildren greeting o ­ thers and each other (see figures 1.1–1.4) ­were photographed or drawn by the ­children participating in the

FIGUR E 1.1  ​“The child has to greet their elder (mkubwa wake), it has good manners (adabu). You have to love the child and the child has to love you. It is not good to hit the child all the time.” Photo by a girl, age fourteen.

FIGUR E 1.2  ​“This picture shows that the child greets their elder (mkubwa wake).

This picture shows good manners (adabu).” Photo by a boy, age fourteen.

FIGUR E 1.3  ​“Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh—­Wa alaikum assalam

wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Being a child means greeting (kuwasalimia) older ­ eople and the elders.” Drawing by a girl, age thirteen. p

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DISPUTING DISCIPLINE

FIGUR E 1.4  ​“Good manners (adabu) are impor­tant for ­children. When ­children

re­spect each other (wakiheshimiana) they build love for helping each other in society or in their families.” Photo by a boy, age seventeen.

research product. What we see in all of them is the action of greeting, through a handshake, as is common practice—­a fundamentally social and unifying action. The images reflect ­children’s views about the importance of paying re­spect to elders and peers through greetings, thereby cultivating love and connection, good manners, friendship, and community. The power of what seems like a mostly taken-­for-­granted action shows in ­children’s descriptions of what it achieves: it builds and establishes sociality, confirms hierarchical status, reinforces good manners, and strengthens a sense of security Bi Zacharia, a young primary schoolteacher, explained that “when a child ­doesn’t greet you (hasalimii) they show that they ­don’t have manners (hana ­ asn’t raised them well (hajamlea vizuri), which adabu). It shows that their parent h is very bad as it shows that even the parent has no manners.” Her explanation reflects the sociality inherent in the act of greeting and courtesy between ­people and the importance attributed to it. The vigor with which this custom is taught from an early age was evident in a scene I observed at a madrasa in June 2014: A group of small c ­ hildren—­the youn­gest about three or four years old—­ sit in a circle around a female teacher, repeating her recitations with shrilling voices. While talking to them she pokes them with her cane and taps them lightly on their legs. Now what is prob­ably the nursery group are made to stand up to practice greeting each other. “When we meet, we



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greet each other” (tukikutana tunasalimiana)—­A ssalamu alaikum wa rah­ matullahi wa barakatuh,13 the teacher commands and all perform, now standing across from one another shaking each other’s l­ ittle hands.

Greeting is a fundamentally social act not only for c ­ hildren but also for anyone of a subordinate position based on age or status, including myself. It is only one of many meta­phors that may be considered regarding the characteristics of embodied communication intended to produce and inculcate re­spect, obedience, love, morality, and social personhood—­all highly valued characteristics in the Zanzibar context.

Re­spect, Obedience, and Love Greeting is essentially about re­spect. “Re­spect” (heshima), Bi Muna told me, “means to re­spect yourself (kujiheshimu mwenyewe), before respecting ­others. If you re­ spect yourself, you ­ will be respected by ­ others.” Relationships between ­children and ­others are structured by the appropriate display. Thirteen-­year-­old Rahma said that “re­spect is for the young ones (wadogo) to re­spect our elders (wakubwa) and vice versa. You must re­spect them like our parents, both young and old,” pointing out that re­spect is a reciprocal pro­cess that one offers to all ­human beings regardless of age (Wiredu and Gyekye 1992). Even though it is reciprocal, re­spect is usually established and initiated in one direction—­from young to old. This is vis­i­ble in the drawing made by twelve-­year-­old Mohamed of a man with a suitcase walking through a village with an el­derly w ­ oman holding a walking stick and carry­ing a handbag walking through a village. A child sells fruit at a ­table, and another child sweeps the floor. Its caption reads, “A person can help an old person—­this too is re­spect.” “Re­spect means listening to elders and obeying ­orders” (kutii amri), twelve-­year-­old Salum wrote under­neath his drawing. As an encompassing ideal for Zanzibari c ­ hildren, re­spect ties into the need for obedience (utii) and the establishment of love (upendo/mapenzi) in relationships. Ten-­year-­old Zahor’s (10) essay echoes this understanding: “A child should always be responsive (msikivu) and quiet/calm (mtulivu). A naughty child (mtoto mtukutu) is warned with words. But if they still ­don’t listen, you hit them with a stick” (huchapwa bakora). One of fifteen-­year-­old Ali’s photo­graphs of a girl sitting in a dark room, with a bowl in front of her and food in her hands, is captioned, “This person is helping their parent. God ­w ill pay you for it. And your parents w ­ ill love you and you ­will be treated well (utaona malezi mazuri).”14 ­These accounts suggest that ­children’s obedience to their parents serves as a tool for building love and re­spect. Obedience may even serve as protection itself, ­because “accepting and obeying commands from ­those who love them is likely therefore to keep them safe as they explore and learn about the world” (Liao 2012, 352). Despite the generalizing nature of this claim, the suggestion that obedience produces safety resonates with many of my young interlocutors’ ideas. Maimuna,

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FIGUR E 1.5  ​“­Children should love each other (wapendane).” Photo by Maimuna,

age twelve.

age twelve, regarded love and empathy between ­children as impor­tant, as shown in her photo of two girls, one of them kissing the cheek of the other who smiles shyly (see figure 1.5). ­Children’s empathy for each other is also emphasized in thirteen-­year-­old Marwan’s image of two boys inside a ­house (see figure 1.6). The younger one cries and holds his cheek, while the older one g ­ ently touches it and looks at him with his hand on his shoulder; the older boy seems to be consoling the younger one. This illustration of ­children’s compassion and companionship reflects even young ­children’s clear conceptualization of the power of social relationships.

Learning Sociality, Cultivating Morality, Approaching Personhood “Childhood is the state when c ­ hildren learn to define which of what they do is bad and which is good,” sixteen-­year-­old Naifat wrote in her essay. Naifat’s reflection depicts Zanzibari childhood as the period during which c ­ hildren are made social by being taught and learning morality, so that they can attain full personhood in society. In Zanzibar, growing up is defined less by age but more by the development of a moral understanding. The example of greeting as a social practice that serves to cultivate morality and generate re­spect, obedience, and love as part of moral development makes this clear. Physical punishment



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FIGUR E 1.6  ​“When one child ­faces a prob­lem, another child shows them compas-

sion (amhurumie mwenzake). The other one should not laugh at them but instead calm them so that when it is his turn, he w ­ ill also receive help (anapokutwa atasaidiwa).” Photo by Marwan, age thirteen.

(adhabu)—as several of my young interlocutors’ accounts showed—is a consistent part of this learning pro­cess. Deeply engrained in this model is the idea that ­children only learn to behave well and morally through punishment. The specific link between courtesy and chastisement is explored in chapter 2. Learning sociality and morality make pos­si­ble the development of personhood. As Bi Muna put it, “The aim of raising a child is for them to be sane (akili timamu, lit. a sound mind). But the aim is also that they have humanity/personhood (utu). Society expects them to have utu.” The importance of personhood or “humanity” is reflected in thirteen-­year-­old Ahmed’s photo of a boy in a blue jacket, which is captioned, “A child is someone who loves their parents and listens to what they say. They raise you from when you are small (udogoni) ­until adulthood (utuzima). We must re­spect our elders and peers. When you are sent to do something and you refuse, you have insulted the parent” (umekera nafsi yake).15 His caption explains the contours of parental responsibility—it ends ­ ntil then it focuses on the when the child reaches adulthood (utu uzima), but u importance of obedience. ­ hole/healthy/undivided/entire/ In Swahili an adult is called mtu mzima (a w complete person). Adulthood is referred to as uzima (­wholeness or entireness) or utu uzimani (full/complete personhood/humanity), with the added locative -­ni

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to specify “being in” that phase. A child can be called mtoto (pl. watoto) or mwana (offspring), and childhood is described as utotoni (child-­ness/-­hood) or udogoni (small-­ness/-­hood). Given that adults are considered “­whole” or “complete” ­people and adulthood as the peak of acquiring personhood, then it follows that ­children must be seen, at least partially, as “incomplete” or “unfinished” ­people who are not yet in possession of full personhood. Thus, Zanzibari understandings of c ­hildren emphasize both notions of c ­hildren as “beings,” as social actors actively constructing childhood and as “becomings—­adults in the making (Uprichard 2008, 303). B ­ ecause of their perceived lack of full social personhood before reaching adulthood, c ­hildren are considered h ­uman but yet incomplete. Surpassing a dichotomous understanding by considering c ­ hildren and childhood as both being and becoming increases c ­ hildren’s agency, “as the onus of their agency is in both the pre­sent and f­uture” (311). “The concept of ontogeny (becoming) is a better category than ontology (being) for capturing the creative, conjugated forms of earthly existence” (Mitchell 2014, xxv): ­children in Zanzibar both are and are becoming persons. They are not static individuals but live in a state of constant flux and remaking. Childhood is a time of being small and not “complete” (in terms of achieving personhood) but si­ mul­ ta­ neously a period of becoming less small and more complete by gradually acquiring characteristics considered necessary for attaining personhood.

Translocal Imaginaries of Childhood: Between Responsibilities and Rights Being young in Zanzibar is not only affected and structured by local, vernacular notions of childhood but also by translocal imaginaries of it, which are framed in the language of c ­ hildren’s rights that demand young p ­ eople’s protection and participation. Translocal concepts frequently operate along the lines of rights and duties and separate ­children—as rights-­holders—­from adults, as duty-­bearers. The most striking difference between t­ hese two discourses is the absence of the concept of c ­ hildren’s responsibilities in universalized rights agendas versus its omnipresence within Zanzibari narratives. ­B ecause of this and other differences, it is hard to integrate the two discourses. In conversation with Zanzibari aid workers, this difficulty frequently became clear. “Who is considered a child in Zanzibar is ambiguous. The international translation (tafsiri) and the religious translation differ. ­Here, not at eigh­ teen, but when a child reaches puberty (akibaleghe), they are an adult (mtu mzima). But we have to agree on one definition only,” a local protection worker explained. Another local child rights activist emphasized this tension between international regulations and vernacular thinking: “From puberty, we see ­children not as ­children anymore. From age fourteen girls can marry, get adulthood responsibilities, care for o ­ thers, and contribute to the f­ amily.”



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Acknowledging the conflict between definitions of childhood and ­children may help aid workers understand why Zanzibari ­children live very dif­fer­ent lives from “Western” c ­ hildren and why t­ hese may demand dif­fer­ent responses. How their roles are viewed, how they are given agency and responsibilities, and what ­children do and what is done to them in the context of protection vary in ­these discursive spheres. Most of my young and older interlocutors strug­gled to speak about c ­ hildren’s rights (haki za watoto) without mentioning their responsibilities (wajibu). This suggests that in Muslim-­majority communities like Zanzibar, “­children’s responsibilities are as impor­tant as their rights and consequently Muslim c ­ hildren are required to re­spect their parents and obey them . . . (the Qur­a n 24: 58–9)” (Rajabi-­A rdeshiri 2009, 479). In fact, the majority of the world’s c ­ hildren fulfill communal tasks, actively contribute to ­house­hold economies, and take on many other responsibilities that would be considered problematic or inappropriate in Western contexts or even “anathema to ­human rights” (Evers, Notermans, and Ommering 2011, 5). Notions of responsibility and respectfulness help determine the degree to which ­children’s protection is pos­si­ble in relation to translocal conceptions of how ­children o ­ ught to have and practice agency. In Zanzibar ­children’s responsibilities ­toward parents “significantly distinguishes Islamic conceptions on the rights of the child” (Rajabi-­A rdeshiri 2009, 482). The interdependence of ­children and adults and the importance of their relationships generate contested ideas about c ­ hildren as rights-­bearing individuals considered ­f ree from responsibility.

­Children’s Rights to Protection and Participation Participation and protection are both enshrined in the CRC. The concept of “participation” has increasingly turned into a key theme in work and research with and on c ­ hildren and young p ­ eople in contexts of international development (Skelton 2007, 165). ­Children’s right to participation is defined in CRC articles 12 and 13.16­Because it is considered “not only a right in itself but also a vital means to the realization of ­children’s other rights” (Hart 2008, 1), participation should be considered in relation to other rights. The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) conceptualizes ­children’s rights less in a “rights-­holder only” way; by specifically spelling out their responsibilities, it considers c ­ hildren equal b ­ earers of duties alongside the adults in their communities. Critiquing the Eurocentric model of childhood inscribed in the CRC, it implies in reverse that considering ­children as b ­ earers of rights is often viewed as “a challenge to ‘non-­Western’ conceptions of childhood” (Ansell 2017, 34). In Zanzibar, both adults and ­children are considered duty-­bearers and required to fulfill societal responsibilities. However, in ACRWC article 12, participation, as a relevant concept to c ­ hildren in society, is ­limited to a space defined as “cultural” and as serving “recreation.”17 This

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suggests a space for ­children’s participation that is separate from everyday life in the community, in ways that are analogous to how culture is often conceived of in development discourse—as a separable part of everyday pro­cesses. ACRWC article 31, in depicting what is completely missing from the CRC, seems to be a critical addition: the “Responsibility of the Child.”18 In contrast to describing a child’s right to participation, t­ here is explicit mention of f­ amily, society, the state, and the community at large, to which ­children are expected to contribute by fulfilling certain responsibilities t­ oward ­others.19 The responsibilities to be respectful and act in regard of general moral well-­being are particularly relevant to the discussion of the relationship between the rights to protection and participation. If participation is conceptualized only based on universalized rights standards that neglect c ­ hildren’s responsibilities, it has the effect of contesting the aim of keeping ­children safe. Zanzibari ­children’s own descriptions of their rights repeatedly mentioned their responsibilities. In their stories and drawings they named “studying at school (skuli) and madrasa” (male, age twelve) and “being brought to school and to study” (kupelekwa skuli na kusoma) (male, age fourteen), “a good upbringing (malezi bora) and safety” (usalama) (female, age 12), as well as “food, play, housing, clothing, and health/hygiene” (female, age 15) as among their rights. Explaining c ­ hildren’s right to education, twelve-­year-­old Nafisa’s photo captured the back view of a boy wearing kanzu and kofia20 walking down a sandy path past ­houses, most likely, as his clothes indicate, heading to madrasa (see figure 1.7). Other images of c ­ hildren walking around their school premises or sitting in their classrooms are captioned, “A child should be given time to play with friends” (Halima, age thirteen) or “­children need to celebrate” (Khalida, age twelve)—­expressing c ­ hildren’s desire to feel joy and have time to relax while studying and the importance of balancing recreation and studying. C ­ hildren’s own perceptions of their rights reiterate many concepts enshrined in the CRC but also underline the responsibilities and roles they o ­ ught to fulfill in dif­fer­ent contexts.

­Children as “Responsible” ­People Notions of c ­ hildren’s responsibilities link to conceptualizations of them as ­people. “­Children are p ­ eople (watu) ­because they help (wanasaidia) in society,” Ukdi Zeinab, a former madrasa teacher, explained when we spoke about ­children’s status in their communities. Her description expresses that childhood is predominantly defined in Zanzibar by ­children’s sociality and their relationships. This represents a stark contrast to the individualism of rights in the CRC. ­Children are regarded as p ­ eople b ­ ecause they help and when they fulfill the responsibilities they carry. Twelve-­year-­old Suhaila’s drawing, titled “A Child’s Responsibility” (wajibu wa mtoto) shows two examples of ­children helping ­others (see figure 1.8). On the

FIGUR E 1.7  ​“This picture explains the right to learn at school, madrasa and tuition.

­ hildren can learn wherever they consider to be an eligible place, and they should C be given the opportunity.” Photo by Nafisa, age twelve.

FIGUR E 1.8  ​“­Children’s responsibility.” Drawing by Suhaila, age twelve.

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DISPUTING DISCIPLINE

left, a ­woman in colorful clothes and head­scarf carries several bags and hands one to a boy standing next to her. Suhaila added an explanation: “The responsibility to obey (kuwatii) and to re­spect (kuwaheshimu) parents and elders. A child has the responsibility to obey their f­ ather, ­mother and other elders to not destroy their respectability” (asiwavunjiye heshima). On the right half of the drawing, we see a boy and a girl sweeping a floor, which Suhaila explained this way: “A child has the responsibility to go to school and madrasa to study. They should not be absent. While at school or madrasa the child has the responsibility to re­spect their teachers, to clean, and to not destroy school or madrasa supplies.” Her emphasis on the responsibilities that ­ children have expresses Zanzibari ­children’s own idea of themselves as responsible ­people with duties in their communities. Their awareness of and emphasis on their responsibilities to their peers, families, and the wider community reflect concepts in the ACRWC that are missing from the CRC. The concept of responsibility is not emphasized in the CRC-­ based child rights discourse that exclusively focuses on c ­ hildren as rights-­holders and adults as duty-­bearers. Such a conception is based on specifically Western notions of child protection and childhood (Twum-­Danso Imoh 2013, 473). In contrast, as stressed in the African Charter, ­children’s responsibilities and duties are considered equally impor­tant for their communities. Therefore, in Zanzibar universalized rights frameworks ­were seen as harmful, a threat or even as “Western impositions” that neglected the importance of c ­ hildren’s contributions to the ­family and the expectations for them to so contribute within their social networks. The idea of rights as a tool for ­children’s empowerment came to be considered harmful. A local UNICEF employee stressed, “It is misunderstood what rights are. That’s why in the African Charter we now have the responsibilities which are not mentioned in the CRC. In Zanzibar, c ­ hildren’s rights are always referred to by ­people as haki (rights) and wajibu (responsibilities). Even the child rights manual we wrote had to be renamed to ‘Haki na Wajibu ya Watoto’ (­Children’s Rights and Responsibilities).” Local interviewees considered rights and responsibilities to be inseparable when I asked them about child protection and participation. To emphasize the link between the two, the Head Officer at the Child Protection Unit (CPU)—­ which was established in collaboration between the Zanzibari government and Save the ­Children as a central reporting desk for cases of vio­lence against c ­ hildren—­explained, “Rights are the left hand (mkono wa kushoto), and responsibilities are the right hand” (mkono wa kulia). At the Unit for Alternative Discipline—­which is run u ­ nder the same auspices as the CPU—an official named Khalid explained to me that “normal ­people (watu wa kawaida) think ­children do not have rights (haki). They ­don’t know that ­ children’s rights (haki za watoto) go beyond eating and g ­oing to school. For them, c ­ hildren’s rights destroy morality (zinavunja maadili) and give



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­children the right to sue them” (kuwashtaki). In Zanzibar, the l­egal system’s increasing willingness “to side with ­children against parents” puts the status of the “good child” at stake, implies changes in how parents treat their c ­ hildren, and shifts understandings “about the nature of childhood, and the changing duties and responsibilities that adults and ­children have ­toward each other” (Montgomery 2008, 159). ­Children’s obedience and voicelessness in the public sphere, so valued in Zanzibari culture, may initially be perceived as antithetical to the agency that participatory approaches intend to support. An emphasis on ­children’s re­spect and obedience also implies a limitation in ­children’s ability to express their views, which again is one of the CRC’s under­lying princi­ples (Twum-­Danso 2009b, 421). In Zanzibar, however, obedience and silence—in displaying adabu—­ are seen as having degrees of agency. Masoud Rajabi-­A rdeshiri described this conception of agency in his work on ­children’s physical and emotional well-­being in mosque schools in the United Kingdom. T ­ here he observed that “the image of an ideal childhood in the West does not meet Muslim parents’ expectations and aspirations regarding their c ­ hildren,” b ­ ecause “the increasingly predominant Western discourse on the democ­ratization of child-­adult relationships threatens the image of ideal child-­adult relations within Muslim families” (2011, 691). The tensions between Western and Islamic conceptions of child-­ rearing that he found in the United Kingdom are also found in the Zanzibar context, where t­here is a disconnect between Western child well-­being discourses that focus on ­children’s rights and the “Islamic discourse on the rights of the child [that] puts equal emphasis on c ­ hildren’s responsibilities” (691).

A Question of Personhood Ultimately, responsibilities and re­spect are interlinked with utu (personhood). “Appropriate” agency for Zanzibari ­children should thus not interfere with their acquisition of utu through adabu (courtesy; see chapter 2). What being “­human” means for dif­fer­ent ­people affects how ­children’s rights and responsibilities are understood. Western rights approaches consider ­children largely devoid of purpose or duty and take responsibilities as somehow opposed to rights, which is very dif­fer­ent from the ideas I encountered in Zanzibar. T ­ here, a child or youth becomes a person by meeting his or her responsibilities (Wiredu 1998), which aligns with the fundamental notion of ­children as both beings and people-­in-­ the-­making. Therefore, universalized rights agendas that dismiss c ­ hildren as responsible agentive beings and categorize them as vulnerable, passive, and homogeneous groups of young p ­ eople without duties and contextual constraints may be opposed by locals. Detaching Zanzibari ­children from their perceived responsibilities and their need to practice and display adabu (manners) and hes­ hima (re­spect) can lead to what Kai Kresse, researching the Swahili context of Mombasa, termed “catapulting oneself out of the moral sphere. . . . ​Someone,

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through their own actions, may no longer have humanity (hana utu tena) and thus may lose the right to be morally respected by ­others” (2007, 150). ­Because Zanzibari c ­ hildren cannot technically possess utu before reaching adulthood, and the display of adabu is its equivalent for this life stage, ­children’s sociality and their agency to act on their own behalf can be destroyed through the loss of utu—­respectively, adabu—­by not adhering to kuwa na adabu (having manners/ self-­discipline).

Conclusion In this chapter, I approached the concepts of “childhood” and “­children” in Zanzibar by reconstructing the historical, sociocultural, and global forces that shape their definitions. This revealed the complexity of formulating “a single, integrated concept of childhood that encompasses subjectivity, governmentality, and morality” (Fassin 2013, 110). I then conceptualized childhood as a realm of history, development, and learning defined by vernacular and con­temporary institutionalized spaces. Subsequently I focused on what ­children learn and act out as social “beings” and “becomings”—­a sociality based on re­spect and manners that enables them to cultivate their morality, which w ­ ill allow them to fully reach social personhood. In Zanzibar, ­children and adults seldom define childhood in terms of age, but instead regard the onset of puberty as an end to that period and marriage as the eventual marker of adulthood. Childhood itself is understood as a stage of learning in vernacular and more institutionalized spaces of education: the former spaces, which consisted mainly of childhood rituals, are being replaced by the latter through religious and state schooling. The sociality that c ­ hildren learn in t­ hese spaces and the moral order they thereby incorporate define their social being and becoming in Zanzibar, the agency they hold as a social category, and the impor­tant role that communities play in raising c ­ hildren in social networks. The fluid and sometimes contradictory ways in which c ­ hildren define childhood, the t­ hings they say about what a child and a person is, and how c ­ hildren are formed spiritually and socially show how childhood in Zanzibar is continually prone to change. They also show how Zanzibari childhood is largely influenced by Islam and what my interlocutors refer to as “custom” and “tradition.” ­These sources of knowledge set the framework for vernacular notions of being a child, being a person, and, in the widest sense, having humanity. It also shows that ­there is ­little agreement on what constitutes childhood as a category and therefore stands at odds with the universalized CRC-­based conceptualization of ­children as every­one below the age of eigh­teen. This notion is of ­little use for ­people in Zanzibar, ­because more power­f ul definitions exist alongside it. ­Children’s well-­being is inseparable from the notion of childhood. Thus, without a clear concept of what childhood is or should be understood as, it



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remains impossible to determine what exactly a “good childhood” should consist of (Adams 2013, 525). Therefore, first understanding what being a child and a person mean is essential for designing large-­scale attempts to improve Zanzibari c ­ hildren’s safety in schools or the wider society. If childhood is viewed “too narrowly, without reference to the meanings of practices for the ­children’s place and their transitions to adulthood within their socie­ ties,” child protection itself may “become an impediment to ­children’s well-­being” (Boyden, Pankhurst, and Tafere 2012, 521). Fi­nally, I considered translocal influences such as universalized rights agendas by zooming in on the notions of responsibilities, rights, and participation. This discussion revealed that young ­people’s social embeddedness demands acknowledging them not only as rights-­holders but also as responsible social agents in society. I concluded with a concept of childhood ultimately being a question of personhood, and how this is enacted and achieved in Zanzibar. In the following chapter, I examine the two most impor­t ant notions for moral childhood socialization in Zanzibar—­courtesy/manners (adabu) and chastisement/punishment (adhabu)—­and at the significance of the difficulty of separating them within the vari­ous discourses that shape ­children’s lives.

2 Childhood with/out Punishment

“Tuanzeni kusoma sura zetu” (Let’s begin to read our sura), the ustadh in the classroom at madrasa Dar Nur announces, and all ­children start reading out loud to themselves from their booklets, each at their own pace. Two boys, who seem about five years old and are sitting across from each other, have picked up small and thin sticks that lay scattered across the ground. While one of them starts reciting one specific sura, the other continuously hits him with his miniature cane. It’s a game. They switch between teacher and student roles, laughing while the reader is “punished” for his recitation m ­ istakes. Hitting each other on their shoulders and legs, they also grab each other’s heads to bend them over so they can hit them on the back, repeating with strict voices, “Nitakusomesha!” (I ­will teach you). Noticing the noise of the c ­ hildren’s game, the ustadh suddenly approaches them with a cane the width of a fin­ger and about 50 cm long. Each of the chatting c ­ hildren receives one stroke on the back—as in the boys’ game. (Observation at a madrasa in Stone Town, July 2014)

Zanzibari ­children learn to understand other ­people and perceive the world through their bodies first: their bodies are the seats of both learning and discipline (Jackson 1996). Like adults, c ­ hildren feel with and through their bodies, and while being ­shaped by the Zanzibar social universe, they shape it in return. Their bodies are texts that reveal their communities’ ethics, aesthetics, norms, and values. They are their “material anchoring in the world” (Merleau-­Ponty 1962) and represent a microcosm of society. As clearly shown in the vignette, ­children also make each other’s bodies sites of learning from an early age. Through play, they embody societal conduct by imitating and reproducing acts they experience in their everyday development. With play, ­children are “­ doing real­ ity” (Strandell 1997). In the Zanzibari c ­hildren’s play I observed, 48



C hildhood with / out P unishment

49

physical punishment generally occurred as an embodied act in a game, but not as ­actual vio­lence. Play shows how culture is embodied. In Zanzibar, ­children’s play combines aspects of resourcefulness and creativity with influences from culture, tradition, and poverty (Berinstein and Magalhaes 2009, 89). It offers insights into young ­people’s worlds by enabling the child “to take the voice of the other” (Schwartzman 1978, 280) and allowing an observer to learn about the other through another “other.” This playful per­for­mance of the student–­teacher relationship is “culture as it has been played” (2) and suggests how engrained physical chastisement is in the archipelago. In addition to imitating and learning, the boys in the vignette used their game to negotiate power among themselves. Outside schools, too, both boys and girls often played at “hitting” each other in the streets as they walked home from school or madrasa.1 They usually imitated their adults’ be­hav­ior by smacking each other with smaller versions of the canes their teachers use to physically correct them in class. ­Because Zanzibari ­children’s bodies cannot be defined in a singular way, we must instead focus on, as Bruno Latour puts it, “what leaves a dynamic trajectory by which we learn to register and become sensitive to what the world is made of” and what “the body has become aware of” (2004, 206). In the Zanzibari school context that is the pain caused by chastisement. In this chapter, I explore how in Zanzibar the cultivation of the body is considered part of the development of the person and examine what ­children’s bodies as nondiscursive forces in social life can tell us about how being and becoming a person takes place. ­A fter exploring in chapter 1 the influences that shape childhood in Zanzibar, I now consider how cultural notions of personhood, morality, and social order and disorder also play a role in childhood development (Scheper-­Hughes and Sargent 1998, 1). I follow Veena Das’s claim that a child is not simply an “object of commands and manipulation” but also a “civilizational obsession”: ­every culture marks stages of childhood by rituals that incorporate c ­ hildren into society (1989, 264). In this chapter, I look at how ­children are and become moral social beings in the network of actors that shape their lives. To unravel formation and socialization pro­cesses, I examine the notion of adabu (manners) in relahuman is tion to adhabu (chastisement), and utu (personhood). Being fully ­ grounded in the concept of personhood (Kleinman 2014), and personhood itself “is not a natu­ral quality but needs to be achieved” (Wiredu and Gyekye 1992, 104). I then explore both how Zanzibari ­children build up and are formed ­toward achieving social personhood along the lines of the ideas of courtesy and chastisement, and the moral framework that defines them. This chapter also interrogates understandings, intersections, and collisions of the concepts of kupiga ­ eople (hitting) and kuchapa (smacking) from the perspective of Zanzibari young p and their teachers.

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­Because it is impossible to divorce “body from person, embodiment from relationship, relationship from history and environment in ethnographic work” (Boddy 1998, 272), actions that affect ­children’s bodies inevitably contribute to constituting their personhood. If the body is a locus of personhood, acceptable chastisement of c ­ hildren’s bodies reiterates their pre-­personhood status. How we think about the body indicates how we think about ­people and reveals multiple viewpoints on ­children’s ability to cope with physical chastisement and its effect on their becoming fully social persons. The physical pro­cess of punishment thus becomes part of shaping a child into someone who w ­ ill eventually be a “full person” (Conklin and Morgan 1996). In Zanzibar this is a type of vio­lence that is not considered “deviant but is seen to be fulfilling po­liti­cal or societal goals” (Water­house and McGee 2015, 11). More than a punishing act, physical discipline is “part of a larger social model of h ­ uman development” (Archambault 2009, 288). Inscribing tutorial messages on young bodies is inseparable from the cultivation of power positions and imbalances. Just as cultural groups provide “social scripts for the domestication of the individual body in conformity to the needs of the social and po­liti­cal order” (Scheper-­Hughes and Lock 1987, 26), chastisement in Zanzibar serves a larger societal order.

Formation and Socialization in Zanzibar Mtoto umleavyo

As you rear a child

Ndivyo hivyo akuavyo

so they ­w ill become

Wazazi tusiende ovyo

Parents let’s not get careless

Taifa litapotea.

or the nation ­w ill parish.

Natuwahimize wana

Let’s encourage them

Kupika na kusoma

to cook and read

Kuwa na tabia njema

To have good manners

Jema baya kutambua.

and to tell good from bad.

Tusifanye ubaguzi

Let’s not discriminate

Katika yetu malezi

in the childcare of ours

Kwani chote ni kizazi ­Because they all are one generation Usawa cha hitajia.

equality is what they need.2

In Zanzibar, poetry is prob­ably the most respected form of art. ­Doing research with ­children, it also became an explic­itly productive means of getting insights into their thoughts about childhood, discipline, punishment, and protection: poetry was the tool they chose most confidently and a form of expression they felt comfortable with. Suhaila’s (age sixteen) poem begins with a well-­known Swa­ ill become. hili saying3: mtoto umleavyo ndivyo akuavyo—­as you rear a child, so they w Her emphasis on c ­ hildren’s ‘shaping’ and ‘becoming,” or their “being made” to



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51

fit into their respective worlds, stands out.4 The emphasis on sociality as a condition for p ­ eople’s worldly existence, or the relationship between a parent and their child, defines ideas about ­children and childhood in this context. Suhaila stresses two central actions that cement this bond: having good manners (kuwa na tabia njema; adabu) and becoming able to tell good from bad (jema baya kut­ ambua). Manners and morality, and the means by which they are achieved, are central to this chapter’s discussion. “Shape the clay/soil while it is still wet”—­udongo uuwahi ungali maji. This is how Mwalimu Ali, one of my key interlocutors and Swahili teachers since 2009, expressed the aim of discipline. “You can only form a person while they are young. Once someone becomes an adult ­there is not much you can do,” he explained, echoing Suhaila’s thoughts.5 This concept recalls Jean La Fontaine’s suggestion in the introduction to Audrey Richards’s Chisungu—­“the control of nature by culture” (Richards 1956, xxxv)—­that is being asserted as the girls undergo their initiation rituals. She described the initiation pro­cess as a shaping of material—­like pottery by experts—­while aiming at “the transformation of ­human nature into responsible social beings” (xxxvi). This aligns with Mwalimu Ali’s image of forming Zanzibari c ­ hildren into ­those kind of persons. In Zanzibar, ­children are considered to be formed, built, or, as often expressed by my interlocutors, constructed (kujengwa) into full social members of their communities by being taught adabu (manners, good be­hav­ior) or tabia njema (good character/behavior), as Suhaila called it. Through that pro­cess, they ultimately acquire full social personhood (utu). As they develop, however, it may be necessary to correct their be­hav­ior through adhabu (chastisement/punishment). When c ­ hildren are in formation, they are moving t­ oward becoming civil but may need physical chastisement to keep them on that path. In the sixteenth-­ century Eu­ro­pean context, the term “civil” “was roughly synonymous with our modern word ‘social’ ” and “ ‘civility’ would thus correspond to what we call ‘good manners,’ ” but meant much more (Ariès 1962, 381). “Civility was the practical knowledge” one needed to have to live in society; it “could not be acquired at school and is synonymous with ‘etiquette’ and its older name ‘courtesy’ ” (381). In Zanzibar ­today, manners and morality hold a similarly impor­tant place in both the educational context and social life.

The Civilizing Concepts Young ­people, like adults, are not isolated beings but are products of interaction occurring in their respective environments (Moore 2007, 25). To explore how “the ­human is formed” (Mitchell 2014, xxvii) in Zanzibar, it is necessary to examine the child’s interaction with friends, teachers, and parents in the social spaces of their communities, schools, and homes, rather than just the child on his or her own (Chapin 2014, 178). The idea of forming a child into a person recalls Norbert Elias’s (1939) definition of the “civilizing pro­ cess.” The concept of

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“civilization” for this purpose describes a type of manners, a certain level of technology, scientific knowledge development, and also religious custom (5). It can also refer to “the manner in which men and ­women live together . . . ​or to the way in which food is prepared” (5). As I ­will show, the components of civilization align with parts of the concept of adabu itself. Acknowledging that civilization describes “the result of a pro­cess” and refers to something in constant motion (6), we see that it is through action and per­ for­ mance that a person comes into being, ­because d ­ oing is being. This discussion of civilizing concepts shows how childhood and c ­ hildren’s realities are constructed around society’s moral viewpoints and ideas about desired child–­adult relations and roles (Kavapalu 1993). A DA BU.  ​ Adabu (manners, courtesy, good be­hav­ior) is one of the essential ideas

that define Zanzibar’s moral universe of “being” and is the central idea of the child formation pro­cess in Zanzibar. Acquired during childhood and performed through everyday interactions, individuals’ manners—­the way they carry themselves and their approach to o ­ thers—­are judged by how they behave. I consider adabu, or rather kuwa na adabu (having manners/discipline), as the complementary discourse to utu or kuwa na utu (having humanity/being moral; Kresse 2007). Young p ­ eople in the pro­cess of being made into adults learn and practice adabu as a means of establishing utu; adults themselves ideally have already established utu. A child must learn “proper be­hav­ior (adabu) so that she or he can grow being accustomed to (zoea) existing rules and etiquette” (Larsen 2008, 51) and incorporate “codes of behaviour and values, and, methods of personal formation” (Metcalf 1984, 2). Types of adabu are rules and manners for eating, praying, speaking, greeting, entering a ­house, and helping the el­derly. Kresse points out, “To re­spect someone e ­ lse (kumheshimu mtu) in the appropriate way and display this in the form appropriate to one’s own status has been one of the ever-­present tasks in Swahili social life,” and preparing for it “is one of the earliest tasks of childhood education, where the c ­ hildren are taught adabu” (good manners) (2007, 143). Accordingly, how Zanzibari c ­hildren act in relation to etiquette and their expected roles indicates ­whether they have manners (ana adabu) or do not have manners (hana adabu). Adabu as a concept embedded within ideas of the ethical, reflects the interwovenness of being in the world, being moral, being a person, and eventually being a child. Adabu is so fundamental to being-­in-­the-­world that it cannot be translated with only one word. Derived from the Arabic term adāb ‫( بدأ‬customary practice, habit),6 the Swahili term adabu, particularly in the context of Islam, refers to “good manners” (Larsen 2008, 158), “good behaviour” (Keshodkar 2013, 173), morspect (heshima), and humaneness (utu). als (maadili), discipline (nidhamu), re­ Adabu is anchored in Islamic moral philosophy and derives from the original Islamic concept of education, or knowledge: ‘ilm ‫ ملع‬of which attaining adabu is



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53

part of the goal (Al-­Attas 1980). H ­ ere, adāb translates into “culture, good breeding, refinement, good manners, humanity, humaneness, morals” (Cowan 1994: 11) and the “instilling of discipline” (Ammar 1954: 126). It implies ­ children’s proper upbringing and their good be­hav­ior and describes the development of both an inner and an outer moral structure (Huda 2004, 462). The perfecting of social and moral conduct through incorporating ethical standards defines a devout Muslim and is both a means and end in itself. Being well mannered—­ possessing and displaying adabu—­implies a state of sophistication that must be cultivated over time. In her research on Japa­nese child rearing practices, Joy Hendry described this similarly; in that context, “the inculcation of ‘manners’ or ‘etiquette’ (reigi saho) into a child” (1986, 75) means “learning the impor­tant categories of society” (85) by “putting into the body of a child the arts of living and good manners in order to create one grown-up person” (11). The ideas that personhood is constructed through learning, that childhood is an impor­tant period of intervention during which a child’s character is most malleable, and that education aims at teaching c ­ hildren re­spect and discipline are key, as is the materiality of being taken literally more than figuratively. Muslim thinkers have long paid importance to the period of childhood as the time to inculcate in a child “appropriate manners, morals, hygiene, and comportment”: instructions for this pro­cess appeared as early as the medieval adāb lit­er­a­ture of the ­Middle East (Morrison 2015, 39). Therefore, childhood in Zanzibar should not be considered as a derivative of a “Western” concept, but one similarly grounded in a historical Islamic framework of “moral character formation” (42). Adabu is part of the Islamic concept of ethics (akhlaq), which in singular form, khulq, means character, nature, or disposition and in Swahili is commonly translated as tabia (character, be­hav­ior). Whereas akhlaq is “the be­hav­ior of the w ­ hole society (tabia ya kijamii),” adabu is the “be­hav­ior of e ­ very individual person (tabia ya kila mtu mwenyewe),” a sheikh explained. Another employee at the Mufti’s Office confirmed that “akhlaq means be­hav­ior (tabia)—­ the way in which a child lives, has good be­hav­ior, morals, good habit. If parents (wazazi) teach ­children good manners, they ­w ill imitate it and be good. Or vice versa.” Instead of the idea that manners are superficial and morality is deep, ­there is a sense in which being is ­doing. Teaching someone manners also means teaching them morals. Hence, all relationships are grounded in an emphasis on re­spect as a way of negotiating and creating mutuality of being by always allowing for and acknowledging the intact otherness of the other. UTU.  ​ Utu is intertwined with adabu and translates to humanity, humaneness

(Topan 2008, 89), “how ­human beings ­ought to behave” (Kresse 2007, 139), or “­doing good (having utu)” (143). It describes a person’s good intent and actions ­toward one another (hali ya mtendea mwenzako insafu) (BAKIZA 2010) and is the end goal of the socialization pro­cess through adabu. Utu is concerned with

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­people’s sociality in society and connotes both morality and goodness (Kresse 2007, 139). C ­ hildren’s social roles in society are influenced by more universal views of being ­human and moral. Mwalimu Mussa, my long-­time Swahili teacher, explained, “You mea­sure (unampima) a person by their humaneness (utu wake) and personhood (utu). Utu is a person’s state of having good manners (kuwa na adabu) and is built (inajengwa) by ­doing good ­things (kutenda mambo mazuri).” Accordingly, utu also implies adabu, and hence tabia and is a part of akhlaq. The concepts’ inseparability makes it difficult to distinguish them. Personhood concepts are central for ­human beings’ becoming and for making ­children into persons, and they are grounded in relationships (Strathern 1988). The Swahili saying, adabu ni ustaarabu (courtesy is civilization), reflects the importance of adabu for the pro­cess of civilization (ustaarabu, lit. being like an Arab; Decker 2014, 4). Returning to Zanzibar’s Swahili linguistic real­ity, I was told that it is semantically impossible to express that a child does not have humaneness (mtoto hana ­ hildren cannot lack utu, ­because they cannot yet possess it: c ­ hildren are utu). C not considered to be complete moral agents.7 However, they already hold the potential for full personhood simply by being h ­ uman, to which t­ here are no degrees, in contrast to the pro­cess of becoming a person. Personhood, in Zanzibar, is an inherently dynamic social category that is gradually acquired and “may be lost or attenuated u ­ nder certain conditions associated with changes in social interactions and bodily composition” (Conklin and Morgan 1996, 658). An adult may not have utu (mtu hana utu) if he or she has displayed poor and not humane/ human-­like be­hav­ior. Not having utu can therefore mean losing “the right to be morally respected by ­others” (Kresse 2007, 150). This differentiation reflects c ­ hildren’s pro­cessual state: their utu is still in the pro­cess of being established through adabu. Or, as one of my interlocutors claimed, “We give ­children their right to build (kujenga) their utu.” An adult, in contrast, can only be considered a full social person (mtu mzima) by having, showing, and practicing utu. The proverbs, asiyejua utu si mtu (a person who does not know humaneness is not ­human) and mtu ni utu (man is humaneness), reiterate this (Kresse 2007, 139; Bhalo 1979; Harries 1966). B ­ ecause full personhood can only be pre­ sent or absent with adults and ­ children must acquire it, young Zanzibaris are both beings and becomings.8 “While we form (kuwajenga) small ­children, adults have already been formed (wameshajengwa) in their families,” another in­for­mant explained, and added “it’s like building a ­house that occasionally needs fixing, you build and you have your tools.” Utu is achieved through establishing akhlaq, which is attained by having and practicing adabu and, if absent, reestablished through adhabu. Being able to tell good from bad, as Suhaila stressed in her poem, or the ability to navigate the Zanzibari social system according to a certain morality (maadili), implies the general



C hildhood with / out P unishment

55

necessity to become ethically literate—to be guided by a Muslim moral framework that allows oneself to be a ‘good child’. In Zanzibar, Islam generally defines what is considered ethical. Bi Muna expresses her understanding of the concept: Ustaarabu means having a structure or a system (mfumo) to your life which often results from education. It describes your development (maendeleo) as an educated person (msomi) that lives an acceptable (unaokubali) life. Nowadays it also describes a clean (msafi), gentle (mpole), and patient (mvumilivu) person. A person who is complete (mtu kamili). It relates to having personhood (utu). The opposite would be a fool (mjinga).

Hence, c ­ hildren work ­towards being civilized, or reaching a state of usta­ arabu and utu throughout childhood and adolescence, to ultimately become a “complete person” (mtu mzima) (Fair 2001). Socialization is “the pro­cess by which individuals become competent adult members of society” (Morton 1996: 7); one may consider a child’s development “from infancy to maturity” to be similar to “the development of the ­human species from savagery to civilization” (Montgomery 2008: 18). Thinking within a Swahili framework, personhood takes on a twofold notion and consists of utu and ubinadamu (Rettova 2007). Ubinadamu (humane) describes the state (hali) in which personhood takes shape. Utu and ubinadamu are as interdependent as adabu and adhabu: “humanity depends on personhood/humaneness, and humaneness builds humanity” (ubinadamu unat­ egemea utu, utu unajenga ubinadamu), to recall Mwalimu Mussa’s words. A DH A BU.  ​ Adhabu, Swahili for punishment, penalty, chastisement, or correc-

tion, derives from the Arabic adhāb ‫( باذع‬punishment) and in an Islamic context refers to God’s anger at and torment of humankind for disobedience9 (mateso anayopewa kiumbe, mateso ya Mwenyezi Mungu; BAKIZA 2010). The principal translation of adhāb is as a feeling/emotion of pain or suffering, and only secondarily does it mean punishment or chastisement (Cowan 1994: 701).10 Islam, Judaism, and Chris­tian­ity value the welfare and care of ­children but “also emphasize the importance of discipline in parenting” (Sidebotham 2015, 390). In medieval socie­ties, c ­ hildren’s corporal punishment served “as a common means of moral education” and “a legitimate and indispensable instrument” (Giladi 1992, 78). Corporal punishment remains “an impor­tant ele­ment in parent–­child relations in vari­ous Muslim socie­ties” (63). Adhabu exists somewhat outside the moral sphere of adabu and utu and at first impression seems to have ­little to do with ordinary child-­rearing practices; yet in the Zanzibari child protection context, it plays an impor­tant role.11 ­Because both adabu and adhabu relate to discipline, they are often used interchangeably, and the bound­a ries between when discipline ends and punishment begins are blurred.

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In Zanzibar, the inculcation of manners (adabu), or moral education, often takes the form of a disciplinary pro­cess, which is regarded an impor­tant area of socialization (Parkin 1985, 156). “Discipline ‘makes’ individuals”: it is a “specific technique of a power that regards individuals both as objects and as instruments of its exercise” (Foucault [1977] 1991, 170). Michel Foucault theorized discipline as an action, drawing on examples from military, medical, and educational spheres and emphasizing the practice’s relevance in the contexts of “colonization, slavery and child rearing” (314n). His claim that “discipline produces subjected and practised bodies, ‘docile’ bodies” (138) describes well the constitution of childhood and persons in Zanzibar, with physical chastisement regularly serving disciplinary pro­cesses. In the next section, I explore this link between discipline and punishment—­adabu and adhabu—­and the vari­ous interpretations and meanings of the concepts. Many of my interlocutors referred to the pro­cess of chastising (kuadhibu) to explain its necessity as a disciplinary practice, but ultimately returned for its justification to adabu, which if absent must be reestablished through it. A local child protection worker explained, “I punish a child (nampa adhabu) so ­later they have good manners (awe na adabu) and be disciplined. Adabu is the result of adhabu. Adhabu is the tool to build adabu. They are linked. To have adabu, a person must be given adhabu.” Regardless of what one is learning, “the pro­cess of outer practice, the creation of habit, and fi­nally a realization of that pro­cess in one’s being is precisely the same” (Metcalf 1984, 11). Altogether adabu may be considered as a form of inner or self-­discipline, and adhabu as external discipline, punishment, or chastisement. This link between internal and external discipline is key to understanding child-­rearing and protection practices in Zanzibar, b ­ ecause the line between them is consistently hard to draw.

Socialization in Practice: Discipline and Punishment Although the co-­constructing force of adabu and adhabu culminates in producing utu, learning and being taught manners during childhood are the foundation and preconditions for acquiring social personhood. Utu depends on having manners/discipline (adabu), so adabu must be reestablished through chastisement (adhabu), if absent. Zanzibari ­children’s formation pro­cess is ultimately a pro­cess of both disciplining the self and disciplining o ­ thers.

Adabu as Disciplining the Self Adabu kitu muhimu

Manners are an impor­tant t­ hing

Tena inatulazimu

And something we have to do

Kwa wanafunzi dawamu

For the students in the classroom

Hilo jama kutambua

Society must recognize this



C hildhood with / out P unishment

Hili jama nawambia

­People I am telling you

Tena nina wahusia

And again I address you

Adabu kitu murua

Manners are a ­thing of politeness

Kwa mwanafunzi sawia

for the upright student

Hima tuweni makini

Come on, let us be careful

Kwa kuhisi hii bali

To feel this, but

Adabu kitu halali

Manners are a legitimate t­ hing

Kwa wanafunzi nawambia

For students I’m telling you

Walimu nawaambia

I am telling the teachers

Tena nina wahusia

Again I address you

Adhabu kushikilia

To hold on to punishment

Kwa mwanafunzi sawiya

for the upright student.

Wanafunzi tuwe hima

Students let us be quick

Wala tusirudi nyuma

Let us not turn back

Adabu kushika vyema

And hold on to our good manners

Hilo jama nawambia

This ­people, I am telling you

57

The young poet Hawaa’s (age fifteen) emphasis on the desirability of adabu in ­ atter students conveys its significance. Viewing adabu as impor­tant (muhimu), a m of politeness (kitu murua), and a legitimate or valued “­thing” (kitu halali) that students must hold onto strongly (adabu kushika vyema) implies its multiple connotations. Adabu, which connotes reciprocity, is frequently connected to re­spect (heshima)—an impor­tant feature “of the social moral code for displaying civilised be­hav ­ior, ustaarabu” (Keshodkar 2013, 139). Yet heshima conveys more than re­spect: it means “the maintenance of that position to which re­spect is due” (Ingrams 1931, 206). The inculcation of adabu through adhabu makes pos­si­ble this maintenance. Ten-­year-­old Alawiyyah’s explanation of heshima underlines this point: “Adabu means respecting older ­people (kuwaheshimu wakubwa) and parents, and for older ­people to re­spect the young ones (wadogo). If they re­spect each other they ­w ill live a good life together.” Re­spect (heshima) is part of a person’s utu and one of the key values and norms that form “the principal moral foundations of Swahili identity and culture” (Saleh 2004, 145). Mutual re­spect is expressed through good manners, as Alawiyyah noted (see also chapter  1). More than merely showing re­spect to ­others, heshima also means “earning re­spect in return” (Decker 2014, 6). In the story of sixteen-­year-­old Wahida, a grand­father explains adabu to his grandchildren as meaning not only “respecting your parents” but also “respecting yourselves (mujiheshimu wenyewe),” thereby expanding the scope of inherent reciprocal re­spect to self-­directed re­spect (Twum-­Danso 2009a). Zanzibari ­children’s moral obligations include respecting and obeying “all p ­ eople

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with grey hair,” and in case of disobedience they “must expect to be beaten” (Knappert 1970, 132). Displaying good manners also shows one’s awareness of the needs of o ­ thers and involves providing care for one’s kin: it is like a form of social security, as fifteen-­year-­old Fatma explained: Adabu is something every­one must do to ­others (good deeds and paying re­spect). This includes all ­people: disabled, poor, and fellow ­children. ­Children learn adabu at school, at home, at madrasa, in the neighborhood and in society. They learn good and bad be­hav­ior (adabu mbaya na mzuri). Bad be­hav­ior includes theft, robbery, looting. Good be­hav­ior includes respecting elders and peers (wakubwa na wadogo), following what your parents, teachers, and peers tell you (only good ­things).

Fatma not only emphasized the importance of paying re­spect to every­one but also clarified where that value is learned. The fact that c ­ hildren learn adabu in both formal and informal spaces of education reveals that it is larger than society itself and is connected to morality. Thirteen-­year-­old Samira’s drawing of a man handing his bag to a child and two ­children greeting each other reinforces this notion: “Older p ­ eople (wakubwa) must re­spect younger ­people (wadogo) and the other way around. Greeting each other shows that they care (wanajali) and have love” (wana upendo). Reciprocity, a quality of adabu, reflects care and love for other ­people and establishes positive relationships. The saying, asiye na adabu hajali wenzake (a person without manners does not care about ­others), supports the power of adabu to establish and maintain relationships. A guidebook to “good be­hav­ior” produced by the East African Lit­er­a­ture Bureau (1962) similarly explains, “Nothing ­else makes the child be loved like good behavior/ discipline (adabu njema). It is our responsibility (wajibu) to teach our c ­ hildren that, to build/form them (kuwajenga) for their f­uture life. C ­ hildren need to be taught manners and discipline, so they w ­ ill have good behaviour in the f­ uture” (wakati wa baadaye) (1). The concept of adabu as guiding one’s life into adulthood was also emphasized by Zuhaila, age ten, who gave this caption to her photo­ graph of a young girl looking into the camera: “Gentleness (upole) and manners (adabu) are a good foundation for your f­ uture life.” The beneficial nature and importance of adabu for c ­ hildren’s f­ utures appear in another proverb: Adabu si adhabu, faida yake yaonekana mtoto akuapo (manners are not punishment; their profit shows as a child grows).

Adabu as Protection and Expectation Adabu is also considered a means of protection that secures c ­ hildren’s potential as social beings in a fundamentally positive way. The idea of forming (kujenga) ­children, as explained by my Swahili teacher Mwalimu Mussa, links to that notion:



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The right to build the child (haki ya kumjenga) leads to the use of discipline (adabu) for dif­fer­ent ­things they do. The aim of discipline is to build (kujenga) ­children’s life. When they make a ­m istake, you correct them immediately to break their bad be­hav­ior (uvunje tabia mbaya) and you build (ujenge) their good character (tabia).

Correction enforces c ­ hildren’s proper formation and protects them from lacking good character in adulthood. ­There is protective potential in the pro­ cess of establishing c ­ hildren’s courtesy through chastisement, b ­ ecause it helps a child become a “complete h ­ uman being” (binadamu kamili). According to Mwalimu Mussa, “You must have utu,” which is partially established through practicing and displaying adabu. “Discipline (adabu) is used to build (kujenga) humanity/personhood (utu/ubinadamu). Society raises a child to live on the right path (njia sahihi). If they leave that path, discipline or punishment returns them to it so they can again have utu. Adabu aims to return a person to the right path.” Hence, the under­lying reason for applying discipline is to guarantee ­children’s adequate development into adults, or rather into “­whole” persons (watu wazima). ­B ecause that aim is achieved through discipline, t­ here is the potential for an unintended contradiction between adabu and adhabu. Adabu has a positive connotation, ­because it “puts c ­ hildren in a state of safety (usalama) and of following instructions (maelekezo),” whereas adhabu “puts the child into a state of danger (hatari),” another interlocutor explained. “Do you think ­children are not loved (hawapendwi) ­here?” Bi Moza, my friend Kauthar’s aunt, who must be in her late forties asked me in one of our conversations. She continued, answering her own question: “Yes they are loved (wana­ pendwa)! We discipline them to guide them (kuwaelekeza). But it must be a certain level (kiwango) of hitting, so the child still knows they are loved.” Emphasizing the “good intentions” of chastisement as an “act of love” to form a child into a full social person, puts the practice, as I encountered it in Zanzibar, into perspective. It echoes Helen Morton’s observations in Tonga, where “­there is no shame associated with hitting c ­ hildren to discipline them ­because it is believed to be necessary and impor­tant” and it is “positively valued as a form of teaching and an expression of love and concern” (1996, 201). This suggests the practice of “beating with care,” which is said to occur “within a loving and caring relationship based on emotional involvement from the caregiver” and “is intended to be controlled and moderate” (Frankenberg, Holmqvist, and Rubenson 2010, 459). It is this link between discipline and love that makes punishment effective; it proposes in reverse the non-­care of not beating and hence the importance of physical chastisement to “responsible” child-­rearing. In addition to being a tool for social interaction, adabu is also plainly an expectation, especially for ­children, who must “become muaddab”—­a person with adabu (Ammar 1954, 126). The presence and absence of adabu are specifically

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observed in ­children, given that adequate manners should be formed during childhood. A child who does not display “the re­spect or deference one properly formed and trained shows to t­ hose who deserve it” (Metcalf 1984, 3) is the product of improper training or socialization. “Huna adabu!” (You have no manners!) is a frequent expression in parent–­child interactions in Zanzibar. Although it is common to lament c ­ hildren’s perceived misbehavior by criticizing their lack of manners, it is less acceptable to say the same to adults. To c ­ hildren such comments translate into a reminder or a warning to watch their be­hav­ior, with the aim of avoiding the need for correction. A child, still in the pro­cess of acquiring adabu, is considered as learning and being s­ haped, whereas adults are expected to have passed this stage. B ­ ecause parents are assigned responsibility for forming young ­people into disciplined beings, bad parenting is a common reason for explaining a child’s bad character (Archambault 2009, 288). For “adab means discipline and training . . . ​ and refinement that results from training . . . ​a person who behaves badly is ‘without adab’ ” (Metcalf 1984, 3), and hence his or her status of personhood is contested. Criticism of adults for lacking adabu is infantilizing; it questions their maturity and their own parents’ ability to have raised them well. As discussed in chapter 1, the kind of person or character desired in Zanzibar embodies notions of re­spect (heshima), shame (haya), obedience (utii), “modesty, humbleness, and self-­restraint” (Beckmann 2015, 119)—­cultural values connected to c ­ hildren’s pro­cesses of becoming. Most of the c ­ hildren’s drawings and photo­graphs produced during fieldwork showed ­children obeying adults’ o ­ rders, initiating greetings, or d ­ oing chores, emphasizing the centrality of adabu during childhood. The drawing of twelve-­year-­old Salia with an explanation of a child receiving money from an adult illustrates the perceived need to obey older ­people’s commands (see figure 2.1). Despite the inherent reciprocity in adabu as a tool for maintaining positive relationships, it is also an expectation of ­children to fulfill their assigned roles and fit into their communities. The “ ‘giving of adab’ to c ­ hildren” hence guarantees “the survival of the social structure, with its patrilineal bias and re­spect relationships” (Ammar 1954, 126). A society’s shared idea of ­people being compelled to behave in par­tic­u­lar ways in keeping with their own inner nature resonates with this notion: in Zanzibar “a child has to learn how to behave, that is, proper be­hav­ior (adabu), so that she or he can grow being accustomed to (kuzoea) existing rules and etiquette” (Larsen 2008, 51).

Adabu as Discipline “Adabu means discipline and assures that a child w ­ ill be a good person (mtu mzuri) in their life,” a high-­ranking sheikh in the Mufti’s Office explained, linking adabu to the notion of discipline and chastisement. The verb form of the noun adabu—­kuadabisha (to discipline)—­ makes this clear. Yet “teaching someone manners” holds a more negative connotation than the noun. The verb is usually



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FIGUR E 2.1  ​“Having manners (kuwa na adabu) is when a child or a small person is

sent somewhere by an older person then they should follow their order. A child can be sent to the shop, to the field, or elsewhere.” Drawing by Salia, age twelve.

used to warn ­children before ­actual punishment occurs. Interestingly, in early Islam the verb addaba was used to indicate punishment (Stepanyants 2007, 247), which relates to the use of the term in Zanzibar ­today, illustrating the importance of the Islamic context for defining language use and connotation. The madrasa officer at the Mufti’s Office supported this perspective: When a child made a m ­ istake (ametenda kosa), you should explain to them what they did wrong and that therefore you chastise/discipline them (unamadabisha). Adabu means teaching a person. If you d ­ on’t have adabu, I need to teach you adabu, so I w ­ ill smack you with the cane twice (nita­ kuchapa bakora mbili). This is allowed (inaruhusiwa) in Islam.

Adabu was commonly defined as a form of discipline that is realized using the cane and is linked to religion. ­Because of this blurry distinction between its positive and negative connotations—­good manners and physical discipline—­ people often switched between the two ways they used this word. Several interlocutors illuminated this double meaning. For thirteen-­year-­old Shela, “Adabu means beating a person that d ­ oesn’t have manners, i.e. insulting you. They need to be taught manners (kufundishwa adabu) or to be strangled (kunyonga) by ­people. A person should be disciplined/punished (atiwe adabu) if they lie or have bad be­hav­ior (tabia mbaya).” ­Here, discipline and punishment merge into one in

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the form of being taught manners, with its positive connotation being lost. Kutiwa adabu, having manners instilled or being chastised, becomes synonymous with being punished. The idea is that discipline should be practiced in a par­tic­u­lar social form or way of being and that practice should be enforced on one’s being through chastisement. As my ethnographic material suggests, ­there is no real distinction between adabu and kutiwa adabu: the two are dif­fer­ent manifestations of the same ­thing. Adabu and adhabu are both associated with discipline. Although adabu should be practiced using self-­restraint and awareness of o ­ thers, it also implies having that practice put into one’s being (kutiwa) through chastisement. Its benefit, as sixteen-­year-­old Nuru explained, is that “when you punish (unapomtia ­ ill re­spect you. Its threat is when you injure the student while adabu) a student w beating them. We must re­spect our elders, so we ­w ill also be respected.” In combination with kutia (to put in), the inculcation of manners becomes a punishment, without mentioning the ­actual Swahili term for punishment (adhabu). Thirteen-­year-­old Huzeifa’s photo­graph of a young boy hitting a smaller boy on his b ­ ehind with the stick of a broom, reads, “This picture explains adabu,” underlining the complex double connotations of the term itself in relation to its potential interchangeability with adhabu, which I turn to now. It may help to recall the meaning of the En­glish term “discipline” and to think about adabu as the positive, and adhabu as the negative idea of it. Unlike the ­ oesn’t educate” (haieli­ inculcation of discipline (adabu), “punishment (adhabu) d mishi), a government employee at the Unit for Alternative Forms of Discipline told me, reinforcing the positive/negative differentiation. In Zanzibar, however, adabu is both end in itself—­the manners and discipline to be acquired—­and means to establish this end: teaching a child manners (kutiwa adabu). Kutiwa adabu literally translates as “to be instilled with manners,” but has a similar double connotation as does the En­glish term “discipline.” It may imply both training in accordance to certain rules and the infliction of punishment. Similarly, kutiwa adabu incorporates this pos­si­ble association with adhabu and points t­ oward the concepts’ relatedness. ­There is discursive dissonance when considering that kutia adabu may translate as both “to punish” and “to teach good manners,” whereas kuadhibu, from adhabu, can be translated to mean to punish, as well as to correct, chastise, persecute, and torment (Taasisi wa Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili [TUKI ] 2001, 2). Caning, similarly, may be translated as adabu or adhabu ya bakora. We see adabu in interchange with adhabu, despite their positive and negative connotations.

Adhabu as Disciplining ­Others Adhabu as a Tool for Correcting M ­ istakes Whereas adabu describes a concept or a state of being moral and pious, adhabu is the tool to establish and reinforce this in case of insufficiency: it is the means



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through which adabu is administered. For thirteen-­year-­old Nassir, punishment (adhabu) was “an action (kitendo) or a lesson (mafunzo) given to someone to teach them something,” and Naima (age fifteen) wrote that it is “what someone experiences when they make a big ­mistake and the person needs to be punished to learn not to make the ­mistake again.” Their views align with the saying, kufanya kosa si kosa, kosa kurudia kosa (making a ­mistake is not yet a ­mistake but ­w ill turn into one should you repeat it). Chastisement was frequently explained as occurring ­after someone made a ­mistake (kufanya kosa) that needed to be corrected (kurekebisha kosa). Kurekebisha—to adjust/correct a ­mistake or, more precisely, the child as such—­contains the idea of “fixing” ­children to make them return to “being good” by re-­forming them into the desired shape through adhabu. Kukosa (to miss/make a ­m istake) has a wide range of referents that extend from making a m ­ istake to the lack or loss of something and from d ­ oing another person wrong to criminal wrongdoing like theft. ­Children in primary and Qur’anic schools are often physically chastised for making ­m istakes in learning in the classroom, which explains the relevance of kukosa in the sense of an active failure to do something. Using the logic of material being, adhabu and kosa go together—­w ith gradients of force ranging from kuchapa (caning) to kupiga (hitting). Kukosa is the agent and precipitates the action of adhabu. Echoing this, Hakeem (age seventeen) added this explanation to the back of his photo­ graph of a crowd of ­children during a school break: “When you are punished (ukipata adhabu), you w ­ ill have re­spect (heshima) for your elder” (mkubwa wako). This reflects the intended effect of chastisement. “We believe that if you have not yet chastised the child (hujamwadabisha), they w ­ ill lack discipline, they ­w ill be disrespectful (mtovu wa adabu). Adabu is impor­tant; therefore they have to be corrected (arekebishwe),” a director at the Ministry of Empowerment, Social Welfare, Youth, ­Women, and ­Children (MoESWYWC) explained. “Correcting” was seen as both an action enforced on a child by an adult (kurekebisha) and as a child’s reflexive act of self-­correction (kujirekebisha), or of “being self-­ disciplined” (Miller 2013, 87). An employee of  the Child Protection Unit (CPU) specified, “A child is being disciplined (anatiwa adabu) so they ­w ill be able to correct themselves (kujirekebisha). It is a lesson ( funzo), a punishment, but not a harsh one. Adhabu is harsh. You do every­thing that might affect the child psychologically and physically. Adabu ­doesn’t do that.” Differentiating between the relative harshness of adabu and adhabu—­discipline and chastisement—­she echoed what many of my interlocutors defined as reasonable. For eleven-­ year-­ old Amina, it is “necessary that ­children are chastised if they have made a m ­ istake; for example, to despise (kuzarau) or not re­spect (kutowasheshimu) the teachers, or to steal.” In other words, displaying a lack of manners demands punishment to correct that misbehavior and to reestablish the desired Zanzibari way of being-­in-­the-­world—­ with and through adabu.

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Adhabu as Caning “In many African countries, not just Zanzibar, p ­ eople believe that for a child to grow (ili akue), it must grow by the cane” (akue viboko), an official of the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training explained. I often encountered this notion of caning as an “African” and “cultural” practice with my interlocutors, and chastisement by the cane (bakora, mikwaju, viboko, fimbo) was the most common ­ hildren’s images, the most freform of adhabu I came across (see figure 2.2). In c quent depiction of correction was also unsurprisingly the use of the cane. Thirteen-­year-­old Zeinab’s photo­graph of a girl walking across the school grounds read, “­Children disrespect their elders and teachers, they roam around and it is necessary that teachers hit them with the cane (kuwapiga mikwaju).” The caption of twelve-­year-­old Jibril’s drawing of a male teacher hitting a startled-­looking male student on his b ­ ehind with a stick the length of his own arm read, “This is a punishment (adhabu) which a teacher administers on a student.” Mohamed (age fourteen) described his photo­graph, which consists mainly of shadows as it was taken inside a classroom, and shows a child caning another child on his ­behind, this way: “The student is given the punishment of being hit (adhabu ya kupigwa)” (see figure 2.3). Zanzibari students’ depictions of caning as an appropriate form of correction align with Caroline Archambault’s observations in ­Kenya, where students

FIGUR E 2.2  ​Canes on a desk in a primary school and in a madrasa, 2014.



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FIGUR E 2.3  ​A demonstration of caning inside a classroom. Photo by Mohamed,

age fourteen.

resented receiving corporal punishment but yet accepted what it stood for and even “perceived the cultivation of discipline and re­spect as constituting one of their ‘rights’ ” (2009, 297). Although many Zanzibari c ­ hildren perceived the infliction of physical pain as exclusively negative, generally they had an ambivalent stance on caning. Fourteen-­year-­old Sabra’s photo of a boy with his hand raised at a ­little girl, who was covering her face with one arm, reads, “If you hit the child, they ­w ill hate you (atakuchukia) and ­w ill not love you as much as other ­people ­because you are punishing it.” Her identification of the psychological impact of inappropriate chastisement on ­children—­that is, as fostering hate—­reveals the affective implications of the practice, which ­children as recipients of punishments experience firsthand. In a photo taken by twelve-­year-­old Yusra, a ­little boy is holding his hands up in the air; it reads, “A child is not eligible (hastahiki) to get harsh punishment (adhabu kubwa) ­because if you punish them like that he can get angry or even increase his unruliness (utundu). Only punish them in eligible ways.” Nevertheless, her support of the notion of appropriate punishment also expresses an ac­cep­tance of the practice.

Understanding Hitting and Smacking: Kuchapa Is Not Vio­lence ­Children’s corporal punishment in Zanzibari schools is a normative form of everyday vio­lence that is engrained “in the minutiae of ‘normal’ social practices”

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(Scheper-­Hughes and Bourgois 2004, 20). Thus, ­children experience physical discipline in schools as not an interruption of ordinary life but rather as a part of it. Corporal punishment in Zanzibar therefore cannot simply be deemed abuse but must be considered a habitus of child-­rearing that carries distinct meaning (Bourdieu 1990). With the possibility, however, that teachers and parents are not fully aware of what they are d ­ oing, their actions may have more meaning than they realize (Bourdieu 1977, 175f): “the line between legitimate corporal punishment and child abuse is, at best, fuzzy” (Freeman 1994, 21). Physically chastising ­children at school, rather than refraining from hitting ­children as promoted through the official child protection agenda, suggest ­there is more to the practice than is immediately vis­i­ble. Child protection prac­ti­tion­ ers who aim to improve ­children’s safety in Zanzibari schools need to understand its meaning below the surface. Personhood is embodied and deeply phenomenological, “­because experience is always lived in bodily ways” (Strathern and Stewart 2011, 396). Administering physical chastisement in the classroom reflects both how ­children are ­imagined to be formed into social ­people through their bodies and what child protection interventions against the practice cause by interfering with the body’s role “in the making of the self” (Mahmood 2001, 214). W H AT CONSTITUT ES COR POR A L PUNISHMENT

is therefore subject to inter-

pretation. In Zanzibari schools, hitting/beating (kupiga) is often distinguished from smacking (kuchapa): whereas kuchapa is not considered violent, kupiga is potentially violent, and forms of kupiga outside the classroom context are always considered to be violent. Watching c ­ hildren being caned while being told they ­were not being hit, as shown in the opening vignette of the introduction, reveals the subtle nuances that follow when the borders of a concept like vio­lence become fuzzy. Using the cane on ­children’s bodies as a means of discipline in schools is usually regarded as correcting (kurekebisha) and smacking, rather than hitting. In the rest of this chapter, I examine the notions of kupiga and kuchapa by bringing into dialogue c ­ hildren’s and adults’ definitions of the similarities and differences between them. The goal of this dialogue is to understand ­whether caning c ­ hildren’s bodies—­the loci of both discipline and protection—is conceptualized as vio­lence. Paying attention to the multifaceted interactions “between flesh and society” (Conklin and Morgan 1996, 663), I interrogate the intimate and inseparable interwovenness of sociality, the body, and the person. ­There is a clear distinction between child rights activists’ and Zanzibari ­children’s and adults’ conceptions of smacking and hitting. The former tend not see any difference between t­ hose forms of punishment, whereas the locals differentiate between them according to the degree of pain caused. Child protection prac­ti­tion­ers in Zanzibar tend to overlook ­these nuances of vernacular notions of vio­lence, which leads to a few harsh, vis­i­ble practices being banned



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while ­others, which are invisible to them, continue. T ­ hese differences in perception may result in opposition to child protection interventions. With a specific focus on how the body is “both naturally and culturally produced” (Scheper-­ Hughes and Lock 1987, 7), I look through a lens of “health thinking” to engage alternative approaches to conceptualizing pro­cesses of punishment and protection. An individual’s body is the most immediate “terrain where social truths and social contradictions are played out, as well as a locus of personal and social re­sis­tance, creativity, and strug­gle” (31). Therefore, this discussion of corporal punishment and protection from it takes the child’s body as a means to think with. I consider how the terms to hit (kupiga) and to smack (kuchapa) are employed, differ, and overlap. In Zanzibar, as Murray Last (2000) observed in Nigeria, the differential use of beating or striking is linked to the belief that discipline is necessary “to mold a young child’s character” (Perry 2009, 50). The fine line between normalized physical punishment and inacceptable chastisement is best explored through Zanzibari c ­ hildren’s own experiences and definitions of the concepts (Saunders and Goddard 2009), as well as ­those of adults.12 They mirror the differences between the two ideas as they appear in chastisement discourses.

­Children’s Understandings of Hitting and Smacking KUPIGA : “WE ARE HIT B ­ ECAUSE WE ­DON’T HAVE MANNERS.” ​Most ­children dif-

ferentiated sharply between hitting and smacking, explaining in detail how to tell them apart. C ­ hildren explained that hitting (kupiga) and being hit (kupigwa) mean “to be given a harsh punishment” (adhabu kali) (boy, age twelve), “which ­causes the child strong physical pain” (maumivu makali ya kimwili) (boy, age fourteen). Hitting happens “when someone is upset (anapokasirika) or angry” (kuwa na hasira) (boy, age fourteen) and “annoyed” (akikereka) (girl, age twelve). ­People hit you “with palms (makofi) or sticks” ( fimbo) (girl, age twelve) “­until you are injured” (ukaumia) (girl, age thirteen), or “­until ­there is a mark (alama), blood (damu), or a tear (kuchanika), with a cane, ­belt, wire, the ­water hose (mpira wa maji)” (girl, age thirteen) or with “a dangerous ­thing (kitu cha hatari) like a stone” (jiwe) or an iron (chuma) (boy, age thirteen). Hitting “can hurt more than smacking” and make you “feel pain” (maumivu) (boy, age twelve). ­Children are hit “when you make ­mistakes” (girl, age twelve) or “when you repeat a ­mistake (ukirejea kosa) ­after having been told it is wrong” (girl, age thirteen). Hitting happens “when you ­don’t want to go to school or madrasa” (boy, age fourteen), when “someone has stolen (kuiba) something” (boy, age thirteen), “when a child insults (kutukana) someone” (girl, age fourteen), or when “­people commit adultery” (kuzini) (boy, age thirteen). ­People are hit when they “­didn’t show re­spect ­toward their elders, their friends’ parents, their teachers, or anyone” (girl, age twelve) and generally when they “­don’t have manners” (girl, age eleven)

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or have “dirty manners (tabia chafu) like a thief” (boy, age seventeen). ­Children are hit “to correct yourself” (kujirekebisha) and “usually when ­children just see a cane (mkwaju13) they already learn and understand” (girl, age twelve). When ­people are hit “they are judged/convicted/sentenced” (amehukumiwa) (girl, age ten). ­There are many kinds of hitting, such as “to hit a child when they make a ­mistake, to hit an animal when it is disobedient (anapokuwa hataki), and sometimes you can even hit adults” (watu wazima) (girl, age fifteen). You can hit “a person or an animal like a donkey or a cow” (boy, age seventeen). Some ­children mentioned that “it can cause harm when a person is hit a lot” (girl, age thirteen) and that being “hit with a big cane (bakora kubwa) can affect you psychologically (kukuathiri kisaikolojia) or give you diseases (maradhi) which hurt or even break your bones” (girl, age thirteen). KUCH A PA.  “TO BE SM ACK ED ME ANS TO BE HIT A L ­ IT TLE.”  ​ My young inter-

locutors considered smacking (kuchapa) as “being given a small punishment” (adhabu ndogo) (boy, age twelve) that “­doesn’t cause serious harm” (madhara makubwa) (boy, age fourteen). It is like “being hit a ­little” (kupigwa kidogo) and “like smacking jokingly” (kwa utani) (girl, age twelve). They claimed that “smacking is not hitting,” but instead “it is mocking (kumtania) a child to make them understand what they ­shouldn’t do” (girl, age thirteen). You can smack “with hands or a coconut palm leaf” (njukuti) (girl, age twelve) or “with a cane” (boy, age thirteen). When p ­ eople smack “with wet clothes (nguo mbichi) or wet ­ hildren “­w ill hands (makofi ikiwa yana maji) it hurts more” (girl, age fourteen). C be smacked a ­little when you make a ­mistake for the first time, so you ­won’t repeat it again” (girl, age thirteen). Smacking happens “when c ­ hildren d ­ on’t go to madrasa, are sent somewhere but d ­ on’t want to go, or are late for school. Smacking and hitting are dif­fer­ent. Even adults are smacked for small ­mistakes. From age eigh­teen, you are only told as you ­w ill know yourself (utajijua), but for big ­mistakes you ­w ill be hit” (boy, age thirteen). Furthermore, c ­ hildren explained that “you smack c ­ hildren so they have good manners (kuwa na adabu), both your own or the ­children of close neighbors when they fail to re­spect their elders” (boy, age fifteen). Accordingly, it is “an action to instill manners (kumtia adabu) into a student or a child when they lack re­spect (akikosa heshima) for their elders. For example, when you ­don’t do the work the teacher gives you, or when you are sent somewhere and ­don’t go, you w ­ ill be caned a ­little (huchapwa bakora chache chache) but not like being beaten (kupigwa)” (boy, age seventeen). “Someone without manners (adabu) must be smacked ­until their manners are fine again (adabu yake ikae sawasawa); then they ­shall be left to go (aachiwe) and [be] forgiven” (asamehewe) (girl, age eleven). Smacking “­doesn’t cause the child strong pain” (boy, age fourteen) and means



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“you ­don’t injure someone” (girl, age thirteen). It is “being hit a ­little without it hurting a lot (haiumi sana) like with a njukuti” (girl, age thirteen). Smacking “­can’t affect you psychologically and cannot give you big illnesses like when you are beaten, like hurting the bones” (girl, age thirteen). KUCHA PA AND KUPIGA A S THE SA ME: “TO HIT IS TO SM ACK, AND TO SM ACK IS TO HIT.”  ​A few c ­ hildren considered both actions the same and impossible to

tell apart. “­There is no difference between smacking (kuchapa) and hitting (kupiga) ­because smacking is hitting. They are two t­ hings that are similar” (vina­ ­ ecause hitting a person vyofanana) (boy, age thirteen). “­There is no difference b is the same as smacking them” (boy, age thirteen), and being hit or smacked “has the same meaning (maana moja) ­because when a child does a bad t­ hing it must be hit” (lazima apigwe) (girl, age nine). One boy argued, “To hit is to smack, and to smack is to hit. ­There is no difference” (boy, age twelve). I was told “­there ­isn’t a big difference between the two” (girl, age fourteen) and that “it is the same” ­because “when you make a m ­ istake (ulipokosea), you w ­ ill be punished” (girl, age ten). C ­ hildren said that “being smacked is what we get at home and at school. It means being hit with the cane (bakora) and being punished” (boy, age fourteen); “being smacked (kuchapwa) is like being hit (kupigwa), but for l­ ittle ­children by using njukuti” (girl, age twelve). IMPLIC ATIONS OF ­ C HILDR EN’ S CONCEPTS OF HIT TING AND SM ACK ING. ​

­Children’s definitions of hitting and smacking create a map of meanings, themes, and ideas directly related to the concepts of manners, m ­ istakes, pain, punishment, and re­spect. For most young interlocutors, hitting and smacking—­kupiga and kuchapa—­were clearly distinguishable. For them, kupiga directly relates to the causation of pain or injury, is connected to negative emotions like anger, and is practiced with dangerous objects like canes or stones. Kuchapa, in contrast, does not cause serious physical harm or injury or have strong psychological effects and is administered using less harmful objects like sticks or palm tree branches. Therefore, kupiga is more explic­itly violent, whereas kuchapa remains outside the sphere of vio­lence. A smaller number of my young respondents could not tell apart the concepts and described one and the same action. Their equation reflects the concepts’ fuzziness and their overlaps, and the actions, which as applied in both contexts, are often the same. That some ­children regarded hitting and smacking as one practice with dif­fer­ent names tells us also that the under­lying aim of both actions was similar: correcting or re-­establishing some­ fter misbehaving or making a ­mistake. The eventual goal one’s manners (adabu) a of making and being a “good” person, if achieving it is in jeopardy, may be reinforced by the use of kuchapa or kupiga. Nevertheless, the two remain distinguishable by severity, intention, and consequent harm.

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Adults’ Views: Not Hitting but Smacking ­Children’s Bodies Like my young interlocuters, the majority of the adult research participants differentiated between hitting and smacking. Bi Salma, who teaches eleven-­to twelve-­year-­olds in standard 6, claimed, “If necessary, we smack (tunachapa). In class we d ­ on’t have canes. We stroke them only once; that is the procedure (tara­ tibu). It’s not hitting (siyo kupiga); hitting is harmful. Smacking means directing” (kuelekeza). This frequently shared adult perspective was also given by Bi Amina, one of the MoESWYWC’s Shehia ­Women and ­Children Coordinators: “­There is a difference between hitting (kupiga) and smacking (kuchapa). Beating happens in anger, but through the programs it decreased a bit. Smacking corrects a child (kumrudisha mtoto). It’s fine and can continue.” As if illustrating her explanation—­but more unconsciously than intentionally—­during our conversation she continuously yelled at her youn­gest ­daughter Mariam for d ­ oing t­ hings that both­ered her: “Acha we! Nitakuchapa!” (Leave it! I w ­ ill smack you!). The threat of hitting is first deployed when a child is very young and is frequently verbalized as a response to minor perceived disturbances exhibited by a younger person. Thus, hitting and its threat are considered “not simply a violent backlash” but instead as a strategic move “orchestrated to send a message to youths” and a warning to ­those “who might consider acting out of line” (Perry 2009, 51). Usually this instilling of fear has the desired anticipatory effect of vio­lence in ­children, so that disciplining is, eventually, about anticipating the ­f uture. A local development worker differentiated kupiga from kuchapa by the tool used to chastise: “Kuchapa would be with the hand (mkono) and without using a lot of strength. For kupiga you use a stick ( fimbo, mikwaju) and more force.” The head of the Child Protection Unit echoed this distinction between tools, explaining that even though the terms resembled (zinafanana) each other, “kuchapa means using a stick ( fimbo) ­because you ­can’t smack someone with your palms (huwezi kumchapa mtu makofi). But kupiga can be both with a stick or with the hands.” Although many of my interlocutors differentiated the two by w ­ hether a cane was used or not, often it was simply the size of the cane that seemed relevant. The head teacher at one of the schools I observed identified the difference between the concepts this way: kuchapa uses “a cane the size of a toothbrush,” and kupiga is “hitting with a big cane.” Few adults regarded kupiga and kuchapa as the same, although an MoEVT official claimed the terms are used interchangeably: “Kuchapa means to hit a ­little with a small cane (bakora ndogo) without hurting the child. Kupiga means to hit a lot. But they have the same meaning (maana moja).” Mwalimu Mussa claimed that “the difference between kupiga and kuchapa is only terminology (istilahi), but ­really it is one ­thing (kitu kimoja). See what ­children say—­only adults differentiate between the concepts (dhana) b ­ ecause they apply them.” His emphasis on the relevance of terminology—of language as employed to mobilize and



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manipulate—­reinforces the need for critical translation and interpretation, ­because it also applies to the differences between adabu and adhabu, or kulinda and kukinga.

Making Moral Muslims through Discipline or Punishment? Discursive Intersections and Conceptual Collisions My discussion of the multilayered descriptions of utu, adabu and adhabu, kupiga and kuchapa, and their “productive misunderstandings” (Livingston 2007) illustrates how intertwined, partially overlapping, and often contradictory t­ hese central Zanzibari child-­rearing ideas are. In addition, utu, adabu, and adhabu cannot be separated from Islamic philosophy and theology, b ­ ecause good be­hav­ior and compensation for committing wrongdoing through penance are considered key to living a “successful Islamic life” of which “good moral be­hav­ior” is the basis (Nazri et al. 2011, 250). Fifteen-­year-­old Halima’s poem reflects this complexity: Tunapopewa adhabu

When we are punished

yatupasa tufahamu

we need to understand

tunafundishwa adabu

that we are taught manners

tuendeleze heshima

so that we ­shall develop re­spect

popote tunapokuwa

wherever we ­shall be.

Adhabu ziendelezwe

Punishments ­shall be continued

kwa wasiojua adabu

for ­those who know no manners

heshima isipuuzwe

re­spect ­shall not be ignored

ufanywe ustarabu.

you s­ hall be civilized.

The first stanza unites the ideas of teaching good manners (adabu) and developing re­spect (heshima) through chastisement (adhabu). The final line evokes the broader concept that encompasses ­these notions: the pro­cess of socialization, or “civilization” (ustaarabu), leads to the acquisition of humaneness or personhood (utu). More than a method of punishment, physical chastisement “is tied to wider philosophies of socialization and ideas about the correct relationship between ­people” and to ideas about ­children’s “nature, the expectations placed on them, and their role in the community” (Morton 1996, 161, 179). Concluding her poem by returning to the endeavor of making ­children social/civil in society as the goal of teaching and learning adabu, and rees­ ither kupiga or tablishing it in case of its absence through adhabu—by using e kuchapa—­emphasizes the ultimate aim of producing morality that is central to all ­these pro­cesses. In reverse, it expresses one of the issues this book explores: the possibility of programs that promote the banning of physical chastisement having the effect of undermining Zanzibari morality that is reproduced through ­people’s inculcation of manners.

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Zanzibari adults consider c ­ hildren to “require disciplining in order to become ­human” (Last 2000, 374). Their socialization revolves around both disciplining the self and being disciplined by ­others to achieve the status of moral Muslim persons. Their social becoming “is intertwined with the coming into being of a young ­human body” (Conklin and Morgan 1996, 658). To understand a Muslim conception of being h ­ uman—­which includes being a young person—­ “we must begin where Muslims begin—­w ith the Qur’an” (Lapidus 1984: 40f). Islam remains the key reference point for Zanzibari Muslim ­children’s physical, social and moral becoming, as for being a good Muslim one must “exercise self-­ control” and “direct one’s state of mind in pious ways” (McIntosh 2009, 19); t­ hose who fulfill Islam “are most fully h ­ uman” (Metcalf 1984, 2).14 Islam is therefore the framework that is indispensable to understanding pro­cesses of childhood socialization in Zanzibar. “The conviction that Islam alone defines what ­humans ­ought to be” (2) makes adabu, as derived from adab, the Islamic ideal of character and morality development that is central to Muslim Zanzibari ­children’s upbringing. As Murray Last points out, not the home but the school is in fact the most impor­tant site “for the disciplining of Muslim ­children” (2000, 375), and courtesy and chastisement both play particularly key roles in Zanzibari schools and madrasas. One central goal of Islamic education is learning “the basic rules of proper be­hav­ior (Arab. adab, akhlaq)” (Loimeier 2013, 104). It aims to produce a “good Muslim as well as a gentleman, a person aware of good manners (adabu), good moral conduct and self-­restraint (heshima), with ‘sound judgement’ (akili) based on his knowledge of the Qur’an” (Loimeier 2009, 248). Thus, Zanzibari ­children grow into complete adults through both adabu and adhabu. Even though discipline and punishment are considered necessary educational tools, Zanzibaris strug­gle to distinguish acceptable from excessive punishment, which was criticized in Islamic essays as early as the ­Middle Ages (Giladi 1992, 63). Adabu and adhabu are frequently used interchangeably, and a clear line between where acceptable discipline ends and harmful punishment begins remains frequently debated and is considered problematic by my in­for­mants. Mwalimu Mussa explained, The use (utumiaji) of the cane is the prob­lem. Teachers forget themselves (wanajisahau) and forget that one to three strokes are enough. ­People ­don’t know the right time to discipline a child, which ­causes prob­lems, for example hitting ­children for coming late. ­There is no agreement (makubaliano) about a child’s discipline (adabu ya watoto) and the level (kiwango) of discipline. But anger is harmful (hasira hasara).

The difficulty of adhering to a single acceptable standard of what is considered necessary and sufficient regarding the correction of ­children’s be­hav­ior is evident. Furthermore, it suggests the dangers of individual interpretations and



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appropriations of standards or guidelines according to each teacher’s assessment of situations that demand chastisement. An official at the Department of W ­ omen and ­Children noted the difficulty of adhering to procedures considered as adequate for disciplinary practices and of determining when discipline turns into punishment, when adabu becomes adhabu, and kuchapa become kupiga: Adabu means disciplining (kuadabisha); [it] is part of giving direction and supposed to guide a person (imwelekeze mtu). But adhabu means that you ­don’t care about the level of discipline. The limit is three cane strokes (bakora tatu); hitting more than that is a prob­lem. We fail (tunashindwa) to observe the boundary (mipaka) between adabu and adhabu and ­people strug­gle (tumeshindwa) to differentiate between the two.

Although “teaching c ­ hildren right from wrong is part of childrearing” (Frankenberg et  al. 2010, 455) and prob­ ably every­ one would agree that c ­hildren should be well mannered, it does m ­ atter w ­ hether caregivers use discipline or chastisement to achieve this fundamental building block of personhood. Even though the need to turn c ­ hildren into moral beings prevails, the acceptable techniques by which this is achieved remain in question. The fact that concepts do not have sharp bound­aries, precisely b ­ ecause they are grounded in specific forms of life, is evident when moral issues are at stake (Das 2015a). When connected to the mutually constituting nature of place and personhood (Retsikas 2007), the difficulty of drawing a sharp line between what is understood as adabu and what is considered adhabu in Zanzibar is apparent. Given that both concepts are primarily grounded in and arise out of Muslim life, they intersect and collide when considered from dif­fer­ent points of view. Adabu remains the primary concept of relevance to child socialization, whereas adhabu is a term of secondary importance. Mzee Issa, an el­derly lecturer at the State University of Zanzibar (SUZA), recalled, “No one spoke of adhabu when we ­were punished as ­children. The only term our parents used was adabu.” ­Today, as seen in c ­ hildren’s definitions of the concepts, the claim for the irrelevance of adhabu no longer holds: punishments are both referred to as adabu and adhabu and described through actions ranging from harmless verbal warnings to harmful chastisement. Whereas adabu implies both courtesy and chastisement—­internal and externally imposed discipline—­adhabu exclusively connotes punishment. Therefore, adabu incorporates both the potential for establishing “etiquette’ ”(Mahmood 2005, 201) and “discipline and good manners” (Miller 2013, 105) and for operating as chastisement (adhabu); it encompasses both practices of smacking and hitting. As a part of ­children’s “moral training” given before they become untrainable adults (Goldstein 1998, 412), discipline is interwoven with physical punishment (Lijembe et al. 1967, 15). ­Because the meanings of the terms overlap both practically and theoretically, it is impossible to separate them.

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Adabu and adhabu together imply a productive pro­cess of moral person-­ making. Adabu is used as a religious justification for physical chastisement, and adhabu is a tool for that chastisement. Both ideas guarantee that ­children become good adults. Without “the external shaping of a child” or “discipline imposed from outside and internalized,” a child is considered “scarcely h ­ uman, and certainly not a proper Muslim” (Last 2000, 376). Humaneness and religiosity are thus essential qualities for Zanzibari ­children’s upbringing. Adabu as a tool for instilling discipline and adhabu as the infliction of pain differ but operate side by side, and neither can replace the other. Hence, what are taught as good be­hav­ior through chastisement—­manners, re­spect, and obedience—­are si­mul­ ta­neously cultural and religious values (see chapter 3). Being a good person and a good Muslim involves questions of morality, and b ­ ecause of the importance of Islam in Zanzibar, c ­ hildren’s moral personhood cannot be separated from e ­ ither aim (Rajabi-­A rdeshiri 2011). B ­ ecause cultural morals and religiosity mutually constitute each other, adabu remains central to c ­ hildren’s worldly and religious socialization. As the linguistic ambiguity and the etymological vagueness of the terms made clear, t­ here is still no precise definition of what is adequate chastisement for c ­ hildren. Thus, educators may continue to use physical chastisement without consequent and consistent reprimand (Miller 2013: 50).

Conclusion In this chapter, I explored the central concepts that socialize ­children into Zanzibari society and ultimately form a child into a person: adabu (manners) and adhabu (chastisement), and utu (personhood). By depicting the multiple meanings of each of t­ hese ideas, I showed how they are inherently interlinked and tie into notions of being young. The insights into t­ hese many meanings illuminated the concepts’ complexity and the difficulties that arise when trying to define them within clear bound­a ries. Difficulties arise when the boundary between them becomes too blurry and discipline eventually turns into punishment. Yet their interwovenness showed that some degree of physical chastisement is considered necessary for turning Zanzibari c ­ hildren into pious, moral adults. ­ Children’s ideas around morality, manners, discipline, and re­ spect reflect how adabu and adhabu are linked and co-­construct child-­rearing pro­ cesses in Zanzibar. Together they imply a productive pro­cess of moral person-­ making. Zanzibari ­children’s socialization and their disciplining depend on cultural ideas about their “nature” and how it must be accommodated “for them to be regarded as fully adult persons” (Morton 1996, 70). Drawing on ­children’s and adults’ definitions of the similarities and differences between hitting (kupiga) and smacking (kuchapa) revealed how dif­fer­ent forms of hitting may be viewed as vio­lence. I discussed the shapes that “vio­lence” takes in Zanzibar through the dif­fer­ent forms of physical chastisement ­children



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and adults defined as hitting (kupiga) and smacking (kuchapa). Demonstrating how hitting is contested ­because of its greater potential for pain and harm, how smacking remains accepted and considered necessary for ­children’s socialization and protection, and how the two frequently overlap in practice illustrated the nuances that exist in physical punishment. ­People do not question ­others for using corporal punishment, but rather hold each other to account for how they chastise ­children and condemn only its excessive use. Although my interlocutors considered child protection programs useful b ­ ecause they decreased the incidence of hitting, they regarded their interventions as not applicable to smacking, which as a supposedly nonviolent practice, fell outside of the programs’ reach. T ­ hese insights show that simply condemning corporal punishment as a practice is insufficient to address all the dif­fer­ent forms it may take. Programs that aim to improve c ­ hildren’s safety by banning corporal punishment may fail to address less obviously violent or visibly harmful forms of chastisement, which may have equally damaging effects on c ­ hildren. Recognizing t­hese existing degrees of vio­lence is essential to intervening in a sensitive field like child protection. It is instead in “Western” discourse that morality and punishment are separable; we can see, for example, in the Save the ­Children’s Positive Discipline program, that a differentiation between nonphysical and physical discipline eventually ­faces complications. Even if how communities and families define and practice what they consider to be in ­children’s best interests—­like personhood-­ making through physical punishment—­does not align with global or governmental ideas and policies, parents and teachers “typically do care about the best interests of c ­ hildren in their care” (Bourdillon and Myers 2012b, 616). Although corporal punishment may be objectionable to child rights activists in Zanzibar and, if administered excessively, also to many Zanzibaris, in other contexts it also makes sense and is perceived as a productive practice of person formation. Understanding Zanzibaris’ interpretations of physical chastisement as contributing to Muslim moral personhood can therefore enhance the knowledge about and provision of child protection. This chapter’s exploration of Zanzibari ideas about vio­lence and chastisement builds the foundation for understanding the consequences of discipline and punishment as applied and contested locally and on a global scale. In the following chapter, I move on from ideas of courtesy, chastisement, personhood, and hitting—­and their manifold meanings—to focus on the notion of protection itself, ­because ­these concepts frequently appear alongside and contest each other in Zanzibari child protection spaces. Unraveling the vari­ous discursive domains in which protection is defined and understood ­will elicit the difference between the spheres from which adabu and adhabu stem and t­ hose within which protection exists. ­Later, this w ­ ill shed light on the question of why child protection interventions in the archipelago are so frequently contested.

3 ­Children and Child Protection

“Who is a child in Zanzibar?” I ask Bi Nuna at her office at the Child Protection Unit (CPU). She looks at me as if this is not g ­ oing to be an easy answer. “Well,” she begins, “according to the government (serikali) and the international po­liti­cal (kisiasa) definition, every­body below the age of eigh­teen is a child. But according to religion (dini), being a child also depends on your state of maturity (kubaleghe) and being able to tell right from wrong (kuamua nini vizuri nini vibaya). If I answer in a cultural way (kitamaduni), I would have to say that every­one remains a child u ­ ntil they get married (mpaka anapooa/anapoolewa). You see, I can give you three answers to your question: a po­liti­cal, a religious, and a cultural one. Unifying them in a single response is difficult.” (Interview, Stone Town, August 5, 2014)

Nothing about childcare and protection is natu­ral or universal. From the moment ­children are born, parents exercise power and control over ­children by deciding what they eat, how their bodies are cared for, and what rituals they undergo (Montgomery 2015, 34). In this chapter, I explore what childcare and protection mean in Zanzibar by unraveling their vari­ous meanings and the friction between them in the discursive spheres that define them. The threefold discursive domain evident in the opening vignette is central to the production of the Zanzibari-­ Swahili social universe as I encountered it. In Zanzibar’s Muslim-­majority society, the Qur’an and the hadith ­were my interlocutors’ primary sources of reference when discussing protection with me. Second, but often si­mul­ta­neously, explanations ­were framed in a Zanzibari-­Swahili “cultural” or “traditional” logic. The impact of religion on c ­ hildren’s lives still remains sidelined in research, and the link between early childhood and spirituality often is considered irrelevant

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(Gottlieb 2004, 79), but h ­ ere I focus on the spiritual foundations of child protection and child-­rearing decisions in Zanzibar. Third, even though Zanzibari ­children and adults often neglected the inseparable realm of national and international development politics in their ideas about protection in everyday life, it produced additional ways of making sense of protecting ­children. This internationalized child protection discourse stems from a completely dif­fer­ent place and occupies a dif­fer­ent discursive domain from the discourses on courtesy (adabu) and chastisement (adhabu). Multiple perspectives of protection and development require negotiation between them, rather than imposition by one group on another. Yet, aid workers and the government try to impose their views on communities in alliance, and within the communities themselves, adults impose their practices on ­children. In both cases, which are structured by power and knowledge, p ­ eople do not get the chance to openly contest received wisdom. Considering the “ ‘creolized’ nature of Swahili culture” (Stiles and Thompson 2015, 9), the three lenses on life I discuss in this chapter must be understood in relation to each other before investigating the prevailing dissonances regarding c ­ hildren’s safety and well-­being. To understand Zanzibaris’ complex logics of lived experiences, I take as a starting point the ambiguity that is inherent in ­people’s lives (Schielke 2010, 3) and locate c ­ hildren’s and adults’ worldviews in both their local contexts of action and within wider global connections. ­Because “cultures” always consist of the intersections of multiple modes of knowing, I explore the circulation and articulation of diverse discourses at local levels and acknowledge that the aggregation of a par­tic­u­lar set of discourses is always “a localized phenomenon” (Lambek 1995, 273). Recognizing the dif­fer­ent shapes of protection within each of ­these discursive spheres enables a critical reflection on current child protection interventions in Zanzibar, which cannot be adequately understood or reconceptualized without acknowledging t­ hese modes of being in the world.

Modes of Knowing: Mapping the Discursive Terrain Categories to Think With Bi Nuna, the child protection officer at the CPU, was the first person whose interview explic­itly addressed the existence of diverse sources of knowledge in Zanzibar. Her explanations revealed the interplay among the vari­ ous lines of reasoning commonly drawn on in a search for answers. As she emphasized, t­ hese dif­fer­ent ethical conceptualizations potentially collide and contest each other’s legitimacy, thereby constantly redrawing the bound­a ries between their very domains. Framing this chapter in response to t­ hese modes of knowing helps represent many of my research participants’ choices of dif­fer­ent words and actions.

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However, the Zanzibari real­ity I temporarily inhabited was, of course, more complex than any categories with clearly drawn bound­aries may represent. What I refer to as “Swahili-­Zanzibari-­ness” was never a purely “traditional” domain, entirely separable from religious or po­liti­cal influence. Neither was Islam ever fully detachable from cultural practice, despite this perceived inseparability frequently being frowned on. Instead of exclusively “Western” politics being at play, other forces like national po­liti­cal agendas w ­ ere similarly prominent but less easily locatable in some kind of “West.” In The Africans: A ­Triple Heritage, Ali Mazrui (1986) established ­these three sense-­making categories: “Africanity, Islam, and Westernization.” I add nuance to this classification, ­going beyond its static and binary conceptualization of Africa versus the “West,” indigeneity versus modernization, and Islam versus Chris­tian­ity. Considering his argument that “indigenous Africa” is at war with “the forces of Western civilisation” (12) to be too s­ imple a stance, I build a more subtle and complex repre­sen­ta­tion of real­ity and show contradictions within my interlocutors’ thoughts and practices.1 In Zanzibar, as mentioned, three main sources of knowledge—­kidini (religion​/​ Islam), kitamaduni/kienyeji (culture/tradition/Swahiliness), and kiinternational/ kisiasa/kiserikali2 (aid/politics/government)—­form a discursive symbiosis that dominates the understanding and practice of concepts. Recalling Claude Lévi-­ Strauss’s (1966) emphasis on the equal validity of the categories of science and magic, I consider ­these categories to think with as equally impor­tant. However, the kidini and kitamaduni discourses—­ religion and “culture”—­ are often too interwoven to be considered separately. Their overlapping is partially reflected in language: “the Swahili language originates in Africa,” but “the religion of the Swahili ­people derives from Arabia” (Frankl 1990, 269). I interrogate this “marriage between an African language and a Semitic religion” (269) from a sociocultural and religious a ­ ngle. In Zanzibar, religion and culture do not oppose but inform one another and are practically distinguishable but mutually defining at once. While religion may certainly be considered part of culture, I ­here follow my interlocutors’ categorizations. They stressed the importance of both discourses existing in­de­pen­dently as separate systems of thought, while also combining them in explanations and practices. This combination of religious and cultural reasoning occasionally formed a counterdiscourse to ideas within the kisiasa mode of thought, while at other times the two forms complemented each other without friction.

Terms to Think Through: To “Prevent” or to “Protect”? Within each mode of knowing, vari­ous terms ­were used to describe “protection.” The most frequently used words ­were kukinga (to guard/protect/defend/ward off), kulinda (to protect/defend), and kuhifadhi (to preserve/protect/conserve). In everyday conversation about ­children’s safety and well-­being, ­people often used kukinga. Within the po­liti­cal aid sphere, protection was spoken of mostly as ulinzi

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or, less frequently, as uhifadhi or usalama (safety)—­the noun forms of kulinda and kuhifadhi. A CPU officer explained the difference between the words:“Uhifadhi is ­ nder it. the umbrella term and more comprehensive. Usalama and ulinzi fall u They all mean protection. But kinga is prevention.” Even though they are equally used to discuss questions of c ­ hildren’s protection, kukinga and kulinda—to prevent and to protect—­ have dif­ fer­ ent connotations. Usalama was frequently associated with road safety (usalama barabarani), and ulinzi was often seen as too strong or forceful a term to indicate the protection of someone by another. “Ulinzi sounds like a ‘military term,” one interlocutor claimed, as if “­people with weapons are fighting for the protection of c ­ hildren.” This was echoed by an official at the MoEVT who claimed that “before t­hese programs started, ulinzi would be associated with a soldier (askari) who stands downstairs with a weapon” (bunduki). The proverb, kinga ni bora kuliko tiba (prevention is better than cure), exemplifies the use of kinga in colloquial Swahili and positions it in opposition to or more impor­tant than tiba (cure/treatment). For Sheikh Mubarak, kukinga is the action “when a danger (hatari) is not yet vis­i­ble. Then you prevent the child from getting that prob­lem.” For an employee at the CPU, “kinga is prevention,” whereas child protection could be referred to by any of the e ­ arlier cited terms. In religious and “cultural” discourse, kinga was associated with medical or magical practice and prevention from potential harms through kombe (Qur’anic medicine). Kukinga therefore aligns with an idea of sheltering or preventing someone from pos­si­ble harm, whereas kulinda suggests guarding or defending someone against a threat or an attack. The distinction ­matters for the connotations the terms carry and the potential opposition to the child protection discourse they imply. A pos­si­ble implication of kulinda and of framing child protection as ulinzi is its identification of teachers and parents as threats to ­children—­which may be perceived as insulting and hence challenged. ­These categories of thought and the terms used to convey them serve as a framework for thinking about c ­ hildren’s protection from a Swahili point of view. The order in which I lay out the following domains of protection indicates the importance that Zanzibari ­children and adults attribute to them: religion—­ Islam—­holding most significance, “culture”—­Swahiliness—­considered as subordinate to religion but inseparably intertwined with it; and international and national po­liti­cal actions—­aid—­that w ­ ere omnipresent but commonly valued less in terms of their constituting power.

Religious and Vernacular Approaches to Protection Bi Nuna’s approach to making sense of protection drew on dif­fer­ent discursive domains, which allows us to understand the plurality inherent in the idea of protection. It reached beyond universalized conceptualizations that use the term

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“protection” in a specific policy-­related manner without questioning their ideological assumptions. Learning about my interlocutors’ associations with protection, without prioritizing definitions from the child protection policy field, revealed the concept’s multidimensionality beyond standardized understandings. Thinking about protection, punishment, and personhood by drawing on the knowledge of each discursive lens helps us grasp the multilayered real­ity within which protection and chastisement take place in Zanzibar. Therefore, I attribute priority to adults’ and c ­ hildren’s associations with protection in a kidini and kitamaduni way of knowing and consider them in their own right and relatedness.

Islam(s) In Zanzibar, thinking religiously (kidini)—in Muslim terms—­was the primary, most relevant lens through which child protection was considered. Swahili culture has often been described as an Islamic culture; although being born in the region or identifying with a specific culture is not required to be “truly Swahili,” being a Muslim is (Knappert 2005, 182). Thus, Zanzibari religious leaders hold unchallenged “moral authority” in public discourse. Despite Islam being the dominant religion in the archipelago, framing it as a unifying, unchanging, phenomenon is difficult, b ­ ecause its “discursive tradition” takes specific shape in this Swahili-­Zanzibari context (Anjum 2007). In addition, Islam as a religion is highly diverse and what being a “good Muslim” means takes specific local forms, “based on locally grounded and morally imbued interpretations of the Islamic tradition” (Inhorn and Sargent 2006, 5). This is equally true for Islam in Zanzibar. The variety of African countries’ historical encounters with Islam makes it difficult to support a notion of “a single, African Islam” (Loimeier 2013, 11), ­because the form it takes “is s­ haped by a history of constant debate and linked to power strug­gles in the region” (Kresse 2007, 81). East African “Islams” thus vary, as ­people and their ideas interpret and translate them into their realities. Nor can Islamic practice or Muslim thinking around questions of protection in Zanzibar be generalized to the ­whole of “Muslim East Africa.” Although some impor­tant markers reappear in vari­ous forms in this geographic region, one must remember the extent to which this specific context s­ haped the form that religion takes ­here (Asad [1986] 2009). As a local development actor further explained, “In Zanzibar, even religion has been culture-­i zed. It is difficult to say where religion ends and where culture begins. It has blended in. If something is a religious issue, we also take it as a cultural issue.” PROTECTION AS ESTA BLISHING MOR A LIT Y.  ​“ ‘Child protection’ means teach-

ing c ­ hildren morals (maadili). This is to protect (kumlinda) the child, and to build their (kumtengeneza) life now and for ­later. Thereby they can tell good (zuri) from

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bad (baya). If they can do that, you already protected them,” a sheikh at the Mufti’s Office explained to me. Religious leaders and teachers at Islamic institutions frequently interpreted protection as a moral shield that guides an individual through life. Punishments that correct ­children’s lack of moral be­hav­ior w ­ ere explained as serving as protection by assuring they would stay on the “right” path. An Islamic authority at the Mufti’s Office offered a broad definition: “Child protection means protecting c ­ hildren from pos­si­ble harm (madhara). When ­children grow up, you educate them, discipline them, and teach them morals, but you ­haven’t protected them yet. You have to make sure the child lives a safe life (maisha salama), is f­ ree (huru), self-­aware (anajielewa), and happy” (ana furaha). Thus protecting c ­ hildren from harm enables not only the inculcation of morality but also helps guarantee their freedom, happiness, and general well-­being. For that reason, the protection of c ­ hildren’s moral development was a central and frequently repeated idea in discussions on how to assure that c ­ hildren are safe. PROTECTION R ITES FOR ­C HILDR EN.  ​According to the saying, kinga huliwa tum­

boni (protection begins in the womb; lit. protection is usually eaten in the womb), the protection of ­children may begin as early as during pregnancy. Rituals whose goal is to contribute to c ­ hildren’s safety are some of c ­ hildren’s earliest experiences. In Zanzibar, the day of a child’s birth and the seventh and fortieth days ­after birth are celebrated with customs pertaining to each day (Ingrams 1931, 196). A booklet from a Stone Town bookshop, Mambo ya Kufanyiwa Mtoto Anapo­ zaliwa (­Things a Child Needs to Undergo upon Birth; Shabaan n.d.), summarizes what according to Islam is considered necessary to be performed on c ­ hildren to assure their well-­being, safety, and protection ­after birth. The booklet outlines that it is common practice on a child’s birth to read the Adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, into the right ear and the Ikama, the second call to prayer, into the left ear (kuadhiniwa mtoto akizaliwa) (Shaaban n.d., 4); this call to prayer is considered to be the words of God—­the first words a child should hear (6). Reading the sura Yasini protects both the child and m ­ other (Ingrams 1931: 228). This, it follows, should be done so “the child ­w ill not be affected (hatohudhuriwa) by Ummu Subyaani, a Jinni that follows and harms (kuwadhuru) ­children” (Shaaban n.d., 5). The second ritual is to feed the child something sweet (kumlambisha kitu kitamu) like a date or honey, the tahnik, as the Prophet did himself. On the first, third, or seventh day a ­ fter birth, the child should be named (kumwita jina; Shaaban n.d., 7). Then, on the seventh day a ­ fter birth, a child’s hair should be shaved (kumnyoa nywele); the weight of this hair (uzani wa nywele za ujusi) should be mea­ sured against money/silver, and the hair should be buried in the ground (zifukiwe ardhini) (Ingrams 1931, 197). This money is usually given to ­people who live with poverty. Bi Muna gave an explanation for this practice: “We believe this hair is not good. The weather/atmosphere (hali ya hewa) is dif­fer­ent outside the womb in the worldly life (maisha ya dunia) so it needs to go and grow

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anew.” The Akika—­the slaughter of two goats for a male child and one goat for a female child (akika kwa ajili yake)—­should also be done on the seventh day (8). “If you ­don’t have money,” Bi Muna noted, “you can slaughter them ­later, but it must be done before the child reaches puberty (kufika baleghe). You do this as an offering and to give thanks to God for giving you a child. Men get two goats ­because they carry more responsibility than ­women.”3 As Avner Giladi explains, ­these Islamic rites of infancy serve “to incorporate the child into the h ­ uman society as a ­whole and particularly into the Muslim community” (1992, 35). Religious ­matters are among the child’s first experiences, which emphasizes the authority of Islam as the defining discourse to everyday life, which determines the approach to assuring c ­ hildren’s protection or well-­being from early on. The Qur’an itself is considered to have medical and protective power. “The ­whole Qur’an is medicine (dawa),” Sheikh Mubarak emphasized, as he explained its specific application. Qur’anic medicine (kombe) is usually practiced by religious authorities and consists of writing sura from the Qur’an in a saffron color onto a plate, dissolving the writing in rosewater, and then ­either washing oneself with the liquid or drinking it (Nieber 2017). It may also consist of sura written on a piece of paper, wrapped in a piece of cloth, that is worn on the body as a talisman or protective charm (hirizi). In urban Zanzibar, but much more often in the villages, I observed ­children wearing necklaces on which hung small packets that contained sura. They ­were also suspended from ceilings on lengths of thread or hung on doors in several of my interlocutors’ h ­ ouses to, as they explained, ward off “the evil” (Ingrams 1931, 462). In t­ hese practices the kidini and kitamaduni domains of Islam overlap and often collide with “culture” or what could also be called “magical” protection. Hirizi (protective charms) use Qur’anic verses’ protective power and are considered to lie between religion (dini) and “tradition” (mila). The opposition of ­these two categories is problematic, ­because at the conceptual level “it artificially isolates what occurs together or is intermingled in real life” (Middleton 1992, 162). Nevertheless, in everyday life, religion and culture seem to complement each other and overlap to the extent of being truly intertwined as to “describe a continuum” (Loimeier and Seesemann 2006, 10). Therefore, and despite my interlocutors’ frequent suggestions of the separability of the categories, the traditions they explained as mila did not necessarily oppose t­ hose considered to be dini (9). Although the use of Qur’anic ­ ere medicine seemed to be widely accepted, the preparation and use of hirizi w more frequently contested. Even though they incorporated Qur’anic sura, they ­were often considered “cultural” and hence antireligious. For example, my neighbor Salma talked about her opposition to the use of hirizi: Waganga and not sheikhs make hirizi for ­children. ­Here in town ­there are only few. It ­doesn’t agree with religion (haiendi na dini). If you want to protect (kumlinda) a child with spirits (majini), then what are you worshiping

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(unaabudu nini)? Allah? Or someone ­else? That’s why it’s inappropriate (haifai) and town ­people ­don’t like it. In the villages (shambani) you find it a lot. ­Here in town ­there are no waganga who deal with t­ hose ­matters.

Her discomfort with mixing religious and cultural practice exposes the tension around the compatibility of Islam with Zanzibari-­Swahili cultural practices. As mentioned, even though hirizi contain sura that are believed to have protective and curative powers, their use through charms to protect ­children from evil spirits is often considered blasphemy. Yet, Sheikh Sharifu told me, “The two most impor­tant t­ hings for the protection of c ­ hildren (kinga za watoto) are safety (usalama) and health (afya). To protect ­children from diseases caused by spirits (majini) we use hirizi. Some p ­ eople say using hirizi is against Islam and blasphemy, but this is a lack of knowledge and not true.” His emphasis on health and safety as central to understanding how c ­ hildren are best protected in Zanzibar expresses well the direction of protective thinking, through t­ hese examples in the realm of religion.

Swahili-­ness Even though it is impossible to define “culture” as bounded or static, it was precisely the terms “cultural” (kitamaduni) and “indigenous” (kienyeji) that my interlocutors frequently used in the context of protective practices for c ­ hildren—­even though their actions and narratives w ­ ere seldom separable from the omnipotent force of religion. Zanzibari-­Swahili culture and religion are so interwoven that depictions of the bound­aries between them vary greatly between p ­ eople. Its publicly contested compatibility with Islam was visibly undermined by my research participants’ lived realities, which w ­ ere ­shaped by close-­k nit combinations of both. Religious protection rituals aligned with “cultural” rites of protection, and both centered around c ­ hildren’s health and safety. All the protective rituals I encountered w ­ ere actions on ­children’s bodies. When I asked the research participants what they did to protect their ­children or to whom they turned with questions regarding ­children’s well-­being before universalized child protection policies and programs ­were introduced in Zanzibar, they described several options. A medical approach and health thinking w ­ ere offered most commonly. B ­ ecause medical practice aims to prevent and cure diseases, “rites of ­children’s medicine, in other words, are rites of passage” (Argenti 2011, 289). ­Children in need of treatment ­were advised to seek out ­people with special knowledge of “local” medicine (dawa ya kienyeji) who focused on ­children’s health. ­These ­were mostly older female healers (bibi anaye dawa ya watoto), traditional midwives (wakunga wa jadi), or, to a lesser extent, “traditional” healers (waganga). Fi­nally, echoing ideas of “safety” or “safeguarding,” community child rearing (malezi ya jamii) was regarded as Zanzibar’s “original child protection system.”

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Protective Health Practices To learn more about c ­ hildren’s medicine and protective rituals, I repeatedly visited Mahsin Madawa (lit. Mahsin’s Medicines)—­a “pharmacy” for alternative medicine owned by a Mr. Mahsin; the store was hidden in a narrow street in Stone Town near Darajani market. While serving his customers, Mahsin explained to me, We take the child as a h ­ uman being (binadamu) first, just like e ­ very adult (mtu mzima), b ­ ecause they feel pain the same way (anaumwa sawasawa). It is all about health (afya). Anything can be prepared as protection (kinga, lit. prevention) for c ­ hildren. We use jimbo, mvuje, and hirizi. Jimbo4 is protection for a baby to have good health (afya nzuri), gain weight (anenepe), and become active and lively (achangaamke). It also protects from evil spirits (mashetani), enemies (maadui) and jealousy (husda). You can fumigate (unamfukiza) ­ children with fumigation (mafusho) made of mixed leaves to chase away bad spirits (shetani wabaya). You can also protect with mvuje,5 which is like a tree, and garlic (kitunguu thomu) in a black cloth (kitambaa cheusi) tied to a child’s arm. ­Children wear mvuje like a watch (kama saa) as a protection. ­Children also wear (kuvishwa) hirizi to protect them (kumlinda) from bad spirits. Hirizi consist of a piece of paper with a sura from the Qur’an bound into a special tin (kibati maalum) or into a piece of cloth. The child wears it like a bracelet (kidani). All this is protection.

This understanding of c ­ hildren’s protection and safety, grounded in Islamic belief and medical understandings of safeguarding c ­ hildren, was repeated by research participants of vari­ous ages and gender. Accordingly, Bi Muna, my long-­ time Swahili teacher, emphasized the importance of using medicinal herbs ­ hildren safe and so guarantee their physical well-­ (dawa za mitishamba) to keep c being and bodily integrity. You wash ­children with jimbo so their bodies become strong. As protection from the devil, you also put kohl (wanja) on their eyes, both for boys and girls. It must be a special, soft wanja without sand in it. You use soot (masinzi) with ghee (samli) or oil (mafuta). This wanja la kombe (religious magical kohl) is also called hasadi. You can continue d ­ oing that even a ­ fter the arobaini, to protect them (kumkinga) from jealousy (husda).

Both Mahsin and Bi Muna conceptualized protection through notions of the body and health. Primarily, they understood protection as a form of preventing disease, treating pain, and protecting ­children from super­natural harm: it was often believed that childhood illness is “caused by the evil eye” (Boswell 2011, 105). Treatments like mvuje, jimbo, or wanja therefore serve as “a protection from harm” (127). In their use of markings and charms that draw on the power of the

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Qur’an, Rebecca Gearhart interprets the Swahili society of Lamu, K ­ enya, as revolving around c ­ hildren’s protection “from spiritual and physical harm, providing them with religious and secular education, and preparing them for their ­f uture” (2013, 19). Her emphasis on the connection between protection and education, both secular and religious, reiterates the link between manners (adabu) and morality as formative for ­children and their f­ uture lives. In Nicolas Argenti’s examination of ­children’s health care in Cameroon, he describes childcare rituals as revealing the tensions inherent in the stage of childhood and c ­ hildren themselves as “targets of strug­gles between local and exogenous forces” (2011, 285). The many protective practices that occur during childhood in Zanzibar, a stage of life that is particularly prone to harm, are motivated by a similar logic. Bi Muna recommended the use of “healers” (waganga) to provide ­children protection from super­natural harm or to treat inexplicable illnesses: If a child has a prob­lem, you go to a healer (mganga) that specializes in treating (kutibu) childhood illnesses (maradhi ya kitoto). Even though nowadays ­children are first brought to the hospital, p ­ eople believe more in demons/the devil (shetani) than in science (sayansi). That’s why they use hirizi. It’s better to first go to the hospital and then try alternative treatment (matibabu mbadala). Some prob­lems (matatizo) are not treatable at the hospital. The biggest harm for ­children is the devil (shetani). ­Children must be protected (alindwe) so they ­won’t be changed by it. When the ­mother goes to the bathroom, someone should look a ­ fter the child so the devil cannot change it. That’s also why at the magharibi prayer ­children must come inside, as during that time demons (mashetani) roam about (wanaranda). Staying inside is a good protection (kinga). In Islam we believe that ­children’s bodies may be entered by demons who ­w ill make them do abnormal ­things (siyo vya kawaida) while the child is still healthy (mzima).

­Children’s vulnerability to super­natural harm and need for protection from it reflect the fragility of the state of childhood and the attention needed to assure ­children’s well-­being. Even though Zanzibari ­children are considered “pure,” they are also regarded as “vulnerable to evil and pollution” (Boswell 2011, 105). Nevertheless, although demons or spirits may cause c ­ hildren harm, they may also protect them, as Bi Muna elaborated: ­A fter having a child, it is entrusted (anakabidhiwa) to a f­ amily member’s demon (shetani) who receives the child. If it’s a good demon (shetani mzuri) they protect it (anamlinda). In Arabic shetani is always something bad. But in Swahili we have both: good and bad demons/spirits. A jini is a type of shetani, but also a “bigger issue,” much bigger than a shetani.

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Several of my interlocutors pointed me to Bi Mwajuma, an older female healer (bibi anaye dawa ya watoto). Her understanding of protection in relation to healing childhood illnesses and preventing super­natural harm offered another perspective on the protective spectrum: You can call every­one a mganga who helps other persons recover from something (kupata nafuu) or brings them a solution (ufumbuzi) to their illness. It’s like being a doctor (daktari). Some healers only do kombe or herbal treatments. I do a bit of every­thing. I predict (kutabiri) demons’ strength with a board and sand, massage p ­ eople (ninamkanda), and examine their ­children. Demons (mashetani) show themselves through illness or causing t­ hings like falling (kuanguka). When the hospital’s treatment ­doesn’t work, it’s usually a demon. Then p ­ eople come to me. I use roots like ginger (tangawizi) or black seed oil (haba soda). The Prophet said it treats all illnesses except death.

The many ways of protecting ­children in society according to Swahili-­ Zanzibari “cultural” practices—­whether tying hirizi to their body, applying kohl to their face, bathing or fumigating newborns in herbal concoctions, assigning them demons, or even using physical chastisement—­all function through actions on or through ­children’s bodies to guarantee their cure or well-­being. Childhood rites can highlight anx­i­eties not just in regard to birth and health risks in infancy but also address “anx­i­eties regarding dangers that are inherent and enduring to the social fabric” of society (Argenti 2011, 287). ­People’s differing perspectives on healing methods emphasize that t­here is no one coherent view of what exclusively constitutes “cultural” or religious practice even among Zanzibaris. Before considering how the international community, the government, and its policies shape definitions of protection, recognizing the nuances within ­these two knowledge sources alone indicates the complexity of the protection real­ity in Zanzibar.

Protection as Safety and Care Ensuring c ­ hildren’s safety and well-­being connects to ideas of caring for or looking a ­ fter them, emphasizes adults’ responsibility to carry out safeguarding approaches, and locates protection in the most intimate space: the f­ amily. “­There is protection in the f­ amily b ­ ecause it brings up (inalea) their child. Families care for (inatunza) their child, before any policy (sera) and before any law” (sheria), a CPU employee explained. ­Children function as social categories in both public and private contexts, as objects of the state and the f­ amily, ­whether as transferrable or status-­constituting subjects. That child-­rearing can also be communal was a theme that repeatedly appeared in t­ hese discussions. “A child is not only your child, but also your neighbors’ child. We all raise ­these c ­ hildren together,” an el­derly ­woman said in her address to t­ hose gathered at a young neighbor’s

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funeral I attended in February 2014. A common theme of conversations about raising c ­ hildren was the ­matter of “owner­ship” or guardianship over c ­ hildren. The perceived differences between more communal child-­rearing (malezi ya jamii), as it used to be practiced, and “modern”—­more individualized and private—­upbringing of and caring for ­children (malezi ya kisasa) w ­ ere a frequent topic of discussion between me and my interlocutors. Consider Bi Muna’s description of t­ hese differences: In our culture a child used to belong to and was reared by the community ( jamii) and not only to the f­ amily ( familia). A neighbor’s child would also be considered your own and supplied with some of their needs like food. If they made mistakes (amefanya makosa) outside their f­ amily, other ­people could correct the child’s be­hav­ior (kumtia adabu/kumrekebisha). If the child told the parents that some elder (mzee fulani) had hit them, they would be hit again by their own f­ather. Nowadays every­one raises only their own child in their f­ amily and not in the community. Parents d ­ on’t let neighbors help them anymore. For example, when I am not home, and my neighbor chastens (anamtia mtoto adabu) my child, I argue (nagombana) with that neighbor.

Her description resonates with Banda’s discussion of changing African ­family values in postcolonial Africa, in which ­children “­were raised by and belonged to the w ­ hole community” (Banda 2014, 654). And as Last noted about Nigerian c ­ hildren, formerly “a child, in a moral sense, belongs to the community” (2000, 378), with all elders entitled to act on the parents’ behalf to chastise a child. Swahili sayings (methali) like mkono moja haulei mwana (a single hand cannot raise a child) or mlimwengu ni mwanawe (­human beings depend on their ­children) resonate with t­ hese ­earlier approaches to child rearing in Zanzibar as a communal pro­cess that involves all members of a community.6 Bi Mariamu, a tall and slender ­woman in her mid-­forties and a secondary school teacher at Kilela School, shared her view on the status of community child-­rearing: Times have changed. Malezi ya jamii d ­ oesn’t exist anymore. But I continue with it in my neighborhood. P ­ eople know that Anti Mariamu w ­ ill hit your ­children if she sees them d ­ oing something wrong. This form of raising ­children was a type of protection, but now parents complain if you touch their child.

A representative of the Zanzibar Teachers’ Union (ZATU) echoed this sentiment: “The old child-­rearing system (mfumo wa malezi) is gone. When I was ­little, every­one in my community ( jamii) could hit me (kunichapa) to put me in my place. Now it is dif­fer­ent. ‘My child is my child’ (mtoto wangu ni wangu) is what ­people say.” The disappearance of community child rearing and a decline in the value placed on the extended f­amily suggest the larger societal shift from the

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communal to the individual, from the public to the private: responsibility for ­children has contracted from the community to close kin networks only. Parents now carry the primary responsibility in ensuring their c ­ hildren’s well-­being. This change in the locus of responsibility has affected child protection. The fundamental idea of “care” used to be assuring c ­ hildren’s safety in ways that ­were not formally institutionalized. In fact, the community’s involvement in child-­rearing (malezi ya jamii) was considered the “original” protection mechanism in assuring ­children’s safety in Zanzibar, as described by a high-­level staff member at the MoEVT: “Back then, elders knew that all adults had responsibil­ hildren, like protecting them (kuwalinda) from ity to care for (kuwahifadhi) their c harm.” A student at Zanzibar University (ZU) echoed this point, emphasizing that “child protection ­really depends on culture. It used to be the ­whole community’s social responsibility, but now this has decreased (imepunguza) and ­people just raise alone” (peke yao tu). And an MoESWYWC official specified that protection emanated from the community’s responsibility to raise c ­ hildren: ­Children belonged to society ( jamii) and ­were protected (walilindwa) by every­one. Every­one could correct their be­hav­ior (kumrudi) to guide them (kumwelekeza). This has changed. Now, if you hit someone’s child, the parents w ­ ill complain (watalalamika) and may go to the police. ­There is no more re­spect (heshima). Back then no parent would sue you, even if ­children cried.

This official’s linkage of community protection and the right to chastise referred to the protective potential inherent in physical chastisement. Bi Mananga, a traditional midwife in her nineties, confirmed this linkage: “If ­children lack good be­hav­ior (adabu) they must be corrected. When you correct a child (ukimrudi mtoto), this is part of protecting them (kumlinda). Three strokes with the cane (mikwaju tatu) and their soul ­w ill be cleaned” (roho itasafika).

­Children’s Accounts of Protection Depending on the discursive lens applied, protection meant a variety of ­things to my dif­fer­ent young interlocutors. Recognizing the Swahili linguistic multidimensionality of protection, I inquired into their understandings of protection (ulinzi), safety/security (usalama), and “being safe” (kuwa na usalama).7 Much like adults’ concepts in the kidini and kitamaduni spheres, ­children’s recurring conceptualization of protection included notions of health, care, and safety. Yet c ­ hildren’s ideas also differed from adults’ concepts in the ele­ments they prioritized.

Protection as Health and Bodily Integrity “It is ­children’s right—to give them what is indeed—­good health—is truly what they need” (Watoto ni haki yao—­k uwapa yaliyo ndiyo—­afya njema ndo

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FIGUR E 3.1  ​­Children dancing and playing as an image of their safety. Photo by

Kamaria, age fourteen.

hiyo—­hasa wanahitaji), according to thirteen-­year-­old Rukia’s poem, e ­ very verse of which ends with this phrase: “I’m calling out to you—­hygiene is truly a shield.” Ideas of health (afya) and bodily integrity recurred in ­children’s depictions of protection, which drew on the right to a healthy life as key to protection and safety. Rukia’s notion of health’s protective function was echoed in Hakeem’s (age ten) explanation that “at school (shule) they teach us about cleaning the environment, our bodies and clothes, science education, geography, maths; at chuo we are taught reading and writing, cleaning the environment, about the body and clothes, praying, history, discipline (good manners) (nidhamu [adabu nzuri]) etc.”—­reinforcing hygiene and health as key subjects of education. The message of fourteen-­year-­old Kamaria’s image of three girls playing or dancing in a circle is that “­children’s safety (usalama wa mtoto) means that they are happy (wanafurahi) and play nicely” (wanacheza vizuri) (see figure 3.1). Similarly, Khadija, age ten, explained, “Safety (usalama) means being healthy (kuwa mzima) and living a good life (maisha mazuri), being happy, peaceful and loving each other, playing with our friends and not fighting or hitting.” Her picture of the “good life” can be paired with twelve-­year-­old Amina’s definition of health, for whom “protection is impor­tant for c ­ hildren b ­ ecause it makes the child grow in good health (kiafya), mind (kiakili), and physically” (kimwili). Healthy development, both physically and psychologically, is made pos­si­ble by protection. Thirteen-­year-­old Zuhura’s explanation of her drawing of a w ­ omen’s bathroom

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and a girl by a sink washing her hands reflects the multiple layers that define protection and also emphasizes health: “­There are dif­fer­ent types of safety (usal­ ama): street safety, safety at school, and even at home. This child shows that when you come from the toilet, you must be clean and safe (uwe safi na salama) and wash your hands with clean ­water.”

Protection as Parental Responsibility and Care My young interlocutors frequently located the responsibility for ­children’s safety with parents. “Parents and guardians know this is their responsibility. Therefore, they try to give the child good instructions on how to pro­gress well (in terms of having re­spect [heshima] and good manners [adabu nzuri] t­ oward other ­people) ­because giving c ­ hildren food to eat, clothes and a bed is not enough,” ten-­year-­ old Khadija told me. Amina added that ­children’s “protection (ulinzi) and safety (usalama) is [sic] assured through parents, guardians, and society as a ­whole. I advise parents, guardians and the community to cooperate (wawe na ushirikiano) with ­children.” Yet protection means more than providing adequate education and the basic necessities and preventing child neglect; it requires “cooperation” between adults and c ­ hildren and extends the responsibility to protect to other actors in the community. The emphasis on the need to be cared for is clear in Maimuna’s (age thirteen) image of a h ­ ouse with a laundry line outside: “This is when a child is given safety (usalama) and not left to roam around b ­ ecause nowadays ­children get stoChildren len (wanaibiwa).” Amal (age fourteen) directly tied care to safety: “­ should grow up in good care (malezi bora) and we s­ hall neither punish them (tusi­ wape adhabu) nor give them ineligible punishments (adhabu isiyostahiki). We should put ­children in a state of safety (usalama) and peace” (amani). Fourteen-­ year-­old Rayan’s photo­graph of a girl wearing a black head­scarf and a blue dress, a smaller girl without a head­scarf, and a boy—­all three holding toys and sitting on a plastic mat in front of a refrigerator—­similarly reflects the importance of safety and echoes adults’ demand for ­children to stay indoors to be safe: “This picture is about c ­ hildren’s safety and shows them inside while they are playing. This helps them to be safe. When they go outside a dangerous donkey may come or a dog might cause them prob­lems, so it is safer when they stay inside.” Being protected by avoiding exposure to potential harms indicates an emphasis on prevention rather than protection as a response.

Protection as Safety from Poverty and Vio­lence “Small Zanzibari ­ children’s life resembles that of other ­ children (kama ya watoto wengine), but also differs from ­others for reasons of their life situation” (hali zao za kimaisha), so began sixteen-­year-­old Suleikha’s essay on childhood; she continued,

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Some have a good life and are healthy, but o ­ thers are poor, and their parents a ­ ren’t wealthy enough to support them with accommodation and food. Therefore, small ­children engage with hard work even though society and the government forbid it. C ­ hildren sell food like peanuts or collect ­bottles. That’s why many ­children are not able to study. They ­can’t go to school without food. It is a prob­lem for ­children having to think about how to find money for school. That’s why parents let their c ­ hildren work when they should be in school.

Pointing out the need to contextualize life situations, Suleikha emphasized what are likely the most critical determining ­factors in how ­children experience childhood: poverty and social in­equality. The impact of poverty on my young interlocutors’ lives was repeatedly depicted in their photo­graphs. One of twelve-­ year-­old Abdulkarim’s photos shows a narrow street between concrete ­houses with a scooter in front of one ­house and a laundry line in front of another: “The madrasas are old and ­there are too many students. We hope that someone ­w ill repair them.” Poor infrastructure and large class sizes further influence ­children’s everyday experiences and are caused by structural poverty. Fourteen-­year-­old Nassra’s photo­graph of a domestic scene in a ­house­hold speaks similarly to this situation (see figure 3.2). The images ­children chose to explain protection offer insights into experiences constrained by poverty.

FIGUR E 3.2  ​“This picture shows the hard work ­children do. A small child fetches

­ ater with a canister that is not their size. He should first reach the age when he w can carry this much w ­ ater. For now this amount is too big.” Photo by Nassra, age fourteen.

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The notion of “safety” was another common theme of c ­ hildren’s explanation of protection. In sixteen-­year-­old Rukia’s essay, she voiced her hope to be safe and protected from abuse: Safety is when ­there is no vio­lence in a place. The child ­w ill be safe and able to do t­ hings with confidence (kujiamini) ­because she w ­ on’t have anything to worry about. Safety is impor­tant for a child to prevent (unamk­ inga) her from bad ­ things (mabaya). If we ­ don’t make places safer (tusipoweka usalama), vio­lence ­w ill continue ­every day in homes, schools, and madrasas.

Although Ahmed (age eleven) simply summarized safety as “a state of having peace” (kuwa na amani), fifteen-­year-­old Najat argued that “­children are safest at home and at school, less so in the neighborhood, where you can be raped or assaulted by men and ­women.” Laila (age thirteen) expressed a similar sentiment in her photo­graph that shows no p ­ eople but only a sandy path that leads through bushes: “This is a place where c ­ hildren get deprived of their happiness (hunyima watoto furaha) ­because ­people might sit ­there who take the opportunity to do a bad ­thing (kitendo kibaya) like raping you (kukubaka) or taking your ­things away (kukupokonya) like your phone, bag, or money.” The c ­ hildren I spoke to had a clear idea of what protection means to them and ­were also clear about who is obliged to provide it. Their framing of protection as an assurance of well-­being through adequate health and the provision of care, as well as vio­lence and poverty prevention, adds to the adult understandings of protection I explored in the religious and cultural discursive spheres, which largely focus on and serve ­children’s socialization. ­Children’s understandings of protection as having a safe environment provided by caring and respectful adults demonstrates their awareness of a range of potential abuses, like some of the threats that adults identified, such as the possibility of being raped. This frames the need for protection in the broadest pos­si­ble way: as “caring for” (kutunza; kujali), instead of kulinda (to protect) or kukinga (to prevent).

A Universalized Approach to Protection The third approach to protection, as reflected in the kisiasa (po­liti­cal) or kiseri­ kali (governmental) definitions of protection, and their relationship to the previous knowledge sources expressed by both Zanzibari c ­ hildren and adults, complete the Zanzibari discursive universe of protection. Internationally initiated and nationally ­adopted development programs by nonstate actors like Save the ­Children and UNICEF play a significant role in conceptualizing child protection. Even though often seen as “Western” b ­ ecause of the dominance and power through which they operate on a global scale, ­these CRC-­based “travelling

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rationalities” (Mosse 2011, 3) on the protection of c ­ hildren are as culturally constructed as Islamic and Zanzibari-­Swahili ways of knowing. Despite also being ­adopted and employed by “majority-­world” development workers, the interpretations of protection in this context are s­ haped and interpreted primarily by aid professionals from “minority-­world” contexts, and frequently depart from or are unrelated to religious and cultural approaches to child protection.

Protection as a Systematic Approach to Vio­lence Prevention “In Zanzibar, child protection is about both response (i.e., counselling) and prevention mechanisms (i.e., advocacy work with parents), coordination and resources on national, district and community levels to protect ­children from abuse, vio­lence, neglect, and exploitation,” a local child rights actor explained. One of his colleagues was more specific: Child protection is a multi-­sector approach. You need to look at ­children’s holistic needs and the functions and structures that facilitate protection. Social welfare ser­v ices are the backbone of child protection ser­v ices. Police, ­legal, health, alternative care. That’s why we are building the capacity of national authorities to identify, report, assess, refer, and respond to cases of ­children in need of care and protection.

­These definitions, which have recently become enshrined in corresponding policies, reveal the institutionalized approach’s complexity in a po­liti­cal sphere. ­Until 2008 child protection as a policy field was not “on the map” in Zanzibar and only officially became a focus area of Zanzibari social welfare ser­vices delivered through the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) with the passing of the Zanzibar ­Children’s Act in 2011. This locally developed comprehensive child rights law acknowledges the need for protective intervention and paved the way for protection programs in and outside of Zanzibar’s schools. Through the government’s collaboration with international ­children’s rights organ­izations, Zanzibar’s child protection system aims to bring together the necessary key sectors to better protect ­children and ensure the adequacy and existence of laws, policies, and ser­v ices to that effect (UNICEF 2011). ­B ecause of UNICEF’s “mandate as an organ­i zation that is guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC),” it considers protecting c ­ hildren from vio­lence as central (UNICEF 2014, 1). Child protection work u ­ nder the auspices of UNICEF takes place in the broad framework of reducing vio­lence against ­children (VAC), which it considers “a major worldwide challenge due to its per­sis­tent nature.” To guarantee a systematic approach to child protection, and b ­ ecause protection never means only one t­ hing, Save the C ­ hildren Zanzibar uses an “11 keys approach”8 that identifies critical cooperation partners9 in society and entry points in establishing a comprehensive program. To strengthen child protection systems that prevent and respond to vio­lence, abuse, neglect, and exploitation

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of ­children, Save the ­Children works with governments, local authorities, communities, and c ­ hildren. Its website states, National and community-­based child protection systems provide the basic “infrastructure” to address child protection issues. Community based child protection involves mobilizing key resources within communities to identify protection risks, understand and address the d ­ rivers of ­those risks, including harmful social norms, and engage relevant community actors in providing first line support, detection and referral when ­children are at risk or have been harmed. A formal child protection system includes legislative and policy frameworks to protect ­children, having a skilled and qualified workforce to respond to child protection issues and having effective approaches at the community level to ensure that girls and boys are protected. By strengthening systems, we ensure approaches are sustainable and ­w ill have a long-­term impact, allowing all ­children to be protected, no ­matter what issues they face.10

Although Save the C ­ hildren officially rejects a single-­issue approach through its systematic child protection strategy, some interventions, as I show in the following chapters, artificially separate entry points in society and have the effect of fragmenting the child protection response (Wulczyn et  al. 2010). Within the Zanzibari government the institutional responsibility for child protection ­ matters lies with the Ministry of Empowerment, Social Welfare, Youth, ­Women and ­Children (MoESWYWC)11 and the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT), which ­handle and coordinate all ­matters concerning ­ children’s protection. M ­ atters concerning ­ children in primary schools and madrasas are also addressed by the Unit for Alternative Forms of Discipline (Kitengo cha Uhamasishaji wa Utumiaji wa Adhabu Mbadala Maskulini). In cooperation with Save the ­Children, which fully finances it, the Unit for Alternative Forms of Discipline is responsible for implementing the Positive Discipline approach (adabu mbadala) that promotes what are considered alternative and nonviolent forms of discipline (Fay 2016). Through this approach, international child rights organ­izations in collaboration with the Zanzibari government hope to improve the protection of ­children in educational settings in Zanzibar.

Protection as Prevention of Corporal Punishment in Schools In the context of development, protection is framed as a systematic approach to vio­lence prevention. ­After identifying corporal punishment as the most common form of vio­lence that c ­ hildren encounter on a daily basis in Zanzibar (UNICEF 2011), a program to eradicate the practice in and outside of schools became central to the organ­izations’ child protection agenda. Save the C ­ hildren has overseen the pi­loting of its Positive Discipline program in a number of state schools. “Save the C ­ hildren’s approach looks at vio­lence in schools in terms of corporal

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punishment, but also in terms of schools as places where c ­ hildren learn life skills and to protect themselves. Schools also have a role as referral institutions,” as a child protection development worker explained. Protection work in schools has included teacher training workshops in Positive Discipline techniques and the establishment of ­Children’s Councils to promote knowledge about ­children’s rights, like t­ hose to safety and participation.

Protection through Participation In Zanzibar and elsewhere, “participation” has become a frequently used “technique” in child rights approaches in development. Aid interventions with ­children and young ­people have gained much attention and support in recent years. Much as with the notion of child protection, the effectiveness and meaningfulness of child participation have not been explored thoroughly, ­because its taken-­for-­granted will-­to-­improve approach that operates on the mantra of empowering c ­ hildren’s voices is often considered beyond the need of reconsideration. “­Children say the two ­things they need is having their voices heard in court—­someone who stands up for them—­a nd counselling,” an international child protection actor at a leading child rights organ­ization in Zanzibar explained. Participatory approaches have long been key strategies for development programs that aim to strengthen ­children’s voices and create allies who listen to them. Based on the CRC-­enshrined rights to protection and participation, childhood researchers and aid workers alike emphasize ideas of c ­ hildren’s agency and consider ­children’s perspectives central to the research field (James and Prout 1997; Morrow 2008). The paradigm shift from c ­ hildren as passive recipients to engaged actors is driving an increase in the use of child-­centered research methods in academia to study c ­ hildren’s lives.12 Similarly, within the international development field of ­children’s rights, programs have increasingly started involving ­children in their activities. Save the C ­ hildren Zanzibar’s protection program operates through such participatory approaches, including c ­ hildren as stakeholders in activities and aiming to support their capacity to make their voices heard in society. Its approach responds to c ­ hildren’s perceptions of lacking “opportunities to participate in decisions that affect them in their home or in the community” and feeling “powerless to change the situations they are in” (Save the C ­ hildren 2009, 6). The side-­by-­side appearance of ­children’s participation and protection in the CRC suggests that the two concepts are inherently intertwined. Nevertheless, ­there is the potential for the two concepts to collide rather than to reinforce each other, when, for example, young ­people’s practical participation in a situation may put them at risk elsewhere. This reminds us that “­human rights may sometimes be abridged not only b ­ ecause t­ here are circumstances where rights conflict and we must choose between them” (Appiah 2005, 261). Thus, participatory

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approaches to working with ­children in both academia and development programs have the potential to give room to ­children’s voices and to improve their marginalized position, and participatory methods are often ­adopted to maximize c ­ hildren’s agency in research pro­cesses (Ansell 2009, 193). However, and specifically in the development field, promoting ­children’s participation has become so common that the meaningfulness of such approaches is jeopardized when frameworks are applied uncritically and without assuring quality control.

A Universalized Approach to ­Children and Childhood ­Children as a Separable Constituency In the CRC, childhood is portrayed and ­imagined as a stage of life that is separate and protected from adulthood, “in which ­children are entitled to special protection, provision, and rights of participation” (Montgomery 2008, 6). In turn, ­children are depicted as a homogeneous constituency in society, separable from other ­people and the pro­cesses around them. Although “childhood is a po­liti­cal issue,” it tends to be separated off from politics as a space of existence, and conceptually ­children are proposed to “operate in an a-­political space” (Mayall 2011, 430f). Considering c ­ hildren as outside the polity is problematic in the practical contexts of participatory development programs (432), b ­ ecause c ­ hildren and adults both follow ethical norms that may require negotiation and may be the sources of tensions as they deal with NGOs (Hanson and Nieuwenhuys 2012, 14). In Zanzibar, a prominent way of involving ­children in protection interventions is through C ­ hildren’s Councils and the National C ­ hildren’s Advisory Board (NCAB).13 Unfortunately, even though the child participation (ushirikishwaji wa mtoto) approaches I observed ­were always intended to be meaningful (wenye uleta maana) and helpful, they ­were not always so in practice. Often envisioned as “empowering” participatory mea­sures, they sometimes caused unintended harm or created situations that seemed more like per­for­mances of what participation was supposed to be, instead of genuinely affecting positive change through including marginalized groups. This side effect interlinked with the consideration of ­children as an integrated social group with common interests, needs and entitlements (White 1996). Parental Groups w ­ ere also formed, intended to run side by side with ­Children’s Councils and Parental Groups, fostering communication between both ­children and adults involved in child rights and child protection programs. However, during my fieldwork, 162 C ­ hildren’s Councils14 w ­ ere formed in Zanzibar compared to only 61 Parental Groups.15 This imbalance led to a halt to the formation of new councils, u ­ nless they w ­ ere started together with Parental Groups (Ljungman et  al. 2014, 27). Working with c ­ hildren without involving adults in discussions of their rights and protection contributed to the

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perception of the child rights discourse as a “corrupting Western concept” that thereby lessened ­children’s safety.16 Creating and supporting voices, without si­mul­ta­neously creating ­people to hear them, turned participation “inside out.” Asymmetrical power relations between ­children and teachers and between community figures and parents—­those presumed to play impactful roles in their lives—­were shown to be “a major inhibiting f­actor to their participation and, consequently, the progressive realization of their rights” (Hart 2008, 412). As mentioned, ­these participatory programs ­were built on the assumption that ­children are physically and emotionally separable from their wider environments (Hart 2012). Yet that separation of childhood and adulthood is a “Western mythologizing of ‘the child’ ” (James 2007, 265) and not reflective of c ­ hildren’s realities in the majority world. As I found, approaches that aim to raise ­children’s voices tend to depoliticize and decontextualize c ­ hildren’s local realities that may be constituted differently from the “Western” imaginaries that are the foundation for t­ hese universal standards (Ferguson 1990; Boyden 1997). Approaching ­children as a generalized type of constituency by clustering them together in ­Children’s Councils or other comparable groups to help them gain more influence and visibility as community members neglected the social ties that connect ­children to their wider communities. Supposedly participatory approaches thereby denied the influence of social networks as defining ­children’s lives, disregarding the influences of the settings in which they live. Both local and international protection workers repeatedly emphasized to me the need to shift the focus of child protection activities away from ­children alone to also include adults. An MoSWEYWC employee told me, “The focus should be on parents (wazazi) and guardians (walezi), and the home (nyumbani). That is where c ­ hildren start to see what they are supposed to see—­good upbringing (malezi mazuri), good manners (adabu nzuri), good conduct (utaratibu nzuri), good language (lugha nzuri).” This government employee emphasized the need to involve both young and old ­people in initiatives that aim to improve ­children’s safety. A European-­born protection worker pointed out that “local and international development actors acknowledge the importance of having individual programs with adults and c ­ hildren but also that you link the two, so teachers are aware of c ­ hildren’s expectations and ­children are aware of the ways they are expected to behave.” Yet this did not happen often, and as I observed in Zanzibar, transnational participatory child protection practice sometimes conflicted with vernacular ideas attached to childhood and protection. Child protection workers became increasingly aware of the harm caused by a failure to include adults in programs that aimed to improve ­children’s safety. One leading child protection activist acknowledged this: We made a big ­mistake in our work on child participation by neglecting to work sufficiently with adults. ­There is a discrepancy and ­there is no

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point investing in young p ­ eople u ­ nless we do the same work around ­children’s needs and rights with adults. This needs to be in an extremely culturally sensitive way, so it is not perceived as a Western idea, which the CRC is often accused to be.

In Zanzibar, this failure to sufficiently work with adults reverberated throughout vari­ous protection institutions. Khalid, the head of the Unit for Alternative Discipline, told me, “It’s a prob­lem that they ­haven’t done any work with the elders (wazee) yet. They work with teachers at the schools while at home ­children are still hit” (wanapigwa). Thus, he expressed the need to focus not only on ­children’s lived experiences but also on wider global contexts in order to ­really understand the broader situation in which ­children’s lives are lived (Ansell 2009). The pairing of the concepts of participation and protection proved complicated and often failed to go beyond the theoretical level. “Spatialised approaches” to child protection and an “islanding of ­children” ignored the inseparability of Zanzibari ­children’s and adults’ lifeworlds (Hart 2012, 474). This artificially created idea of c ­ hildren’s physical, cognitive, and emotional separability from their wider environments caused the inverted effect that participatory protection approaches intended (476). Therefore, “protective” interventions disrupted c ­ hildren’s ­family and community relationships (Bourdillon 2014, 500) and disregarded families’ central roles in child socialization and rearing for effective CRC implementation (Twum-­Danso 2009b: 415).

­Children as Individuals Embedded in Specific Contexts In contrast to being part of one separable and generalizable entity in society, ­children live as individuals in vari­ous life situations that demand critical understandings of childhood within wider contexts of interdependence (Meloni, Vanthuyne, and Rousseau 2015). C ­ hildren are social and connected, they live in relation to other c ­ hildren and adults, and they depend on t­ hese relations for their protection. Viewing t­ hese relationships in the context of CRC-­based approaches can reveal why parents may reject child protection programs (Tobin 2017). In September 2014, the head teacher at one of my research schools told me about parents lacking knowledge of the harms of hitting: “­There is no awareness (muamko) at home. It’s a big difference between the school and the home. The ministers (waziri) ­don’t go to the homes.” Munir Kadhar Munir from the Zanzibar Muslim Acad­emy expressed a similar idea: ­There are three relevant infrastructures (miundombinu): the school, the madrasa, and the home. If they ­don’t work with the same system, that’s a prob­lem. At madrasa, ­there is a lot of caning (mikwaju kwelikweli). I’m happy they started with the seminars. Every­one in the community needs the same education. They need to be given their dose (dosi) all at the same time.

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His explanation points to the multiple institutional contexts that child protection interventions should consider. The school, the madrasa, and the home—­spaces in which c ­ hildren and adults interact and that define ­children’s experiences—­a ll must be considered when trying to implement consistent approaches that do not artificially separate one space of ­children’s daily lives from o ­ thers. For example, I learned about c ­ hildren’s concerns about participating in a Save the ­Children workshop to train them as child researchers for a research study. When I asked them what w ­ ere their biggest fears about participating in the proj­ect, they listed the following: “missing school/madrasa; not being able to fulfill commitments/chores in the f­ amily; not being taken seriously/believed in by the community.” C ­ hildren w ­ ere worried most about not having the time to fulfill their responsibilities elsewhere and then not being able to be responsible young ­people as expected of them in their communities. The structure of the child protection programs do not take account of how c ­ hildren experience them. Rather than seeing ­children as an in­de­pen­dent category of their own in society, it is critical to consider how their responsibilities in their communities may be contested through participatory approaches.

Fragile Agency: Va­r i­e­ties of Participation and Voice ­Children’s agency and participation vary according to the environments they move in and how settings and other p ­ eople within them shape their views. Low levels of agency complicate protection, ­because for c ­ hildren’s rights to be realized, they need to have ways in which they themselves can practice their rights; ­these rights “cannot be l­ imited to codifications in international or state law, nor to interpretations produced by development agencies” (Hanson and Nieuwenhuys 2012, 10). Acknowledging the varying levels of agency and participation enables us to see why and how international interventions that aim to better protect ­children by increasing their participation remain constrained and often do not have the intended consequences. Power relations are fundamental to an international organ­i zation’s implementation of a child protection system that aims to change ­people’s be­hav­ior. Nevertheless, many supposedly “participatory” programs generate conflict, b ­ ecause agendas that set out to help “the voiceless gain a voice . . . ​challenge power relations, both within any individual proj­ect and in wider society” (White 1996, 14f). In Zanzibar, in par­tic­u­lar, the intention to support c ­ hildren’s voices has been understood as a reconstitution of prevailing power structures, and reinforcing c ­ hildren’s agency is perceived as undermining the social control that parents or teachers hold over c ­ hildren. The participatory protection approach contested societal hierarchies by increasing c ­ hildren’s participation and agency. Aid agencies, in considering a change in power as a relational concept negotiated between c ­hildren and adults, depicted ­children as full rights-­bearing citizens who should be included in

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decision-­making pro­cesses. B ­ ecause “the power­f ul would find it easier if t­ hose below them lacked rights” (Hart et al. 2011, 336), this shift inevitably created tension and power inequalities remained naturalized. Citizen participation in decision-­making pro­cesses implies a “re­distribution of power” to t­ hose previously excluded from po­liti­cal and economic pro­cesses (Arnstein 1969, 216). Thus, participatory development activities as they took place in the context of child protection in Zanzibar may partially be considered to facilitate a form of “tyranny” through “the illegitimate and/or unjust exercise of power” (Cooke and Kothari 2001, 4), that enforce a promising but not very meaningful framework on ­children. Ideas of in­de­pen­dent agency and participation, as implied by and crucial for using this method, contradicted societal expectation of ­children’s passive position at the bottom of the Zanzibari hierarchy.

Agency through Contestation Participatory approaches suggest an increase in the possibility to exercise agency. Nevertheless, the assumption that ­children’s agency increases with an increase in participation did not always hold true in Zanzibar. The programs delivering development interventions are often fragile. Yet “­children’s lives involve both the exercise of agency as well as coping with its constraints due to certain social, cultural, po­liti­cal, l­egal, physical, or economic structures,” and ­children are themselves capable of exercising power despite facing situations of being less power­f ul (Evers, Notermans, and Ommering 2011, 12). In Zanzibari schools, it was actually the pro­cess of enduring physical punishment that seemed to give ­children more room for agency and for understanding themselves as subjects than was pos­si­ble within the spaces of ­children’s rights organ­izations in which their participation was allowed or even requested. In the many incidents of physical chastisement that I observed, ­children often used their own agency to contest the use of the cane, as in t­ hese observations of an incident that took place at a madrasa in August 2014: Shortly ­after getting to the madrasa, a boy of twelve or thirteen arrives late and is immediately caned on his bottom. He sits down slightly distressed but seems familiar with the practice. An older boy is next to be hit by a younger female teacher. As she hits him, he briefly grabs her cane to interrupt her action. ­A fter receiving his strokes, he smiles and looks ­little disturbed. The teacher walks around with her cane held over the ­children’s heads, seemingly reminding them of its power. She stops and hits a girl. The girl, too, grabs the cane while it flings t­ owards her, even giggling a bit. Then the older boy receives the teacher’s cane and takes over her role, walking amidst the groups of ­children, now in charge himself, imitating her manner.

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At the primary schools where I conducted research, I observed similar scenes. C ­ hildren occasionally grabbed the canes or tried holding on to them while being hit; their ­doing that often had no consequences, such as receiving additional strokes. ­Here, ­children’s individual power to attach meaning to their own acts of abuse as “conflict stakeholders” (McIntyre 2005, 229), and the extent to which it was accepted, was particularly vis­i­ble. Zanzibari c ­ hildren used their own agency and power to contest the power they had to submit to by reacting in ways they deemed sensible.

Participation as Compliance Nevertheless, such agency is fragile, and consequences from exerting it w ­ ere hardly predictable. This implies that, even more than serving as individual social agents, ­children act within networks of sociality that are influenced by the expectations that parents, teachers, and development workers have of them and the roles they are assigned. Another example broadens the perspective on agency and how it is acted out in the context of participation: On a morning in Nungwi in March 2015, we are waiting for the arrival of the participants of a combined ­Children’s Councils and Parental Groups workshop. “Not every­one is ­here yet, but I’m sure they w ­ ill all come. They know they are getting paid,” Fatma, a local Save the C ­ hildren employee, whispers in my ear. Only t­ oward the end of the workshop, when all participants received a “per diem” of 30,000 shillings (GBP 10.00) for their participation, did I understand properly that t­ here had been an serious financial incentive for them to participate.

­People’s genuine motivation and interest in the workshop themes are cast into question when they receive payment of sums higher than many ­people’s daily salaries for their attendance. Yet, t­ here is still a degree of agency within such seemingly manipulative contexts of participation. It is not surprising that ­children are keen on taking part in participatory development activities, b ­ ecause ­doing so enables them to improve their families’ economic conditions by contributing to their ­house­holds what they “earn” as participants. They chose to take part in ­these workshops and used their agency for their own purpose, rather than to serve the intentions of aid prac­ti­tion­ers. Nevertheless, through a development lens, participation is used as a means “to produce compliant subjects of the state,” b ­ ecause activities and pro­cesses “run in parallel with ­those of adults rather than as an integrated part of local, let alone, national pro­cesses of governance” (Hart 2008, 6). International aid organ­i zations’ initiation and operation of child protection activities in Zanzibar, within which young ­people are turned into compliant subjects, represent such parallel systems that exist as complement to, instead of a revision of, existing structures.

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Participation and Voice as a Threat Voice is not identical to speech and is not always immediately heard (Das 2007). While listening to ­children’s voices has gained popularity in development circles, frequently “­those voices are silenced by images of childhood that cling to the more traditional, developmental discourse of ­children’s incompetence, rather than competence, as social actors” (James 2007, 266). In any event, across all spheres of engagement, participation in the form of supporting c ­ hildren’s voices was considered a destabilizing threat to Zanzibar’s social order. Zubeid, a local child protection worker, explained, “­People see child participation as over-­ empowering c ­ hildren. They believe that ­children in Eu­rope are over-­empowered. They can do anything and say anything to parents, which is not good. Zanzibari adults want to maintain their situation whereby parents are the top of the f­ amily and ­children ­can’t challenge this.” Intending to promote both young p ­ eople’s voices and their participation evoked opposition. “The nature of the ‘voice’ with which ­children are attributed . . . ​both shapes and reflects the ways in which childhood is understood” (266). An officer at the MoEVT told me, Back in the day, a child could not sit with an adult. It was never discussed (haijadili). ­There was no child participation. A child was just a child. But now ­children are being included (wakashirikishwa). They share their views, they speak (wanasema), and t­ hings are slowly starting to change. In the beginning, elders said this is misbehaving—­a child cannot sit with adults. It’s not normal.

Development programs, in which ­children and adults sit together and ­children express their opinions, are thus frequently seen as promoting unacceptable be­hav­ior. This suggests the disruptive potential inherent in t­ hese participatory approaches. A local child protection worker noted that “working with child participation is new, and as with anything new, ­people are not very comfortable,” and hence might see this break from tradition as dangerous. She added, “When you empower ­children to speak up, of course, adults ­w ill not be happy. It is outside the norm of being quiet when adults speak. Even if you disagree, you ­don’t say it in front of adults, ­because an older person does not make mistakes/is never wrong” (mkubwa hakosei). In Zanzibar, silence itself may mean protection, b ­ ecause “whoever says nothing has nothing to fear” (Scheper-­ Hughes 1992, 505). Rather than displaying what Saba Mahmood called “deplorable passivity and docility from a progressivist point of view,” Zanzibari ­children being s­ ilent and obedient may thus “very well be a form of agency” (2001, 212). Silence as a cultural norm—­especially for Zanzibari girls and ­women, but to a lesser degree also for boys and men—­produces the desired type of person and makes young p ­ eople who are not ­silent appear threatening to the ruling order. To draw on the words of another local child rights activist,

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This culture of ­children not speaking up, of having to be ­silent, at a certain age when they are teens or adults, they ­don’t have the confidence to speak up. If you ask them something, they just keep quiet. They might know the answer, but they are so afraid to speak up and share their views and ideas. It creates a kind of inferiority complex which has an impact when they are adults.

In addition, creating opportunities for ­children to speak up and use their voice within the bound­aries of spaces assigned to this kind of participation does not sufficiently ensure that c ­ hildren’s voices and views are heard. C ­ hildren may still find their voices being disregarded or silenced in their daily lives despite the creation of official repre­sen­ta­tions of them in public discourse. Cultural values and beliefs always infuse societal discourses on c ­ hildren’s social positions, and this too connects to the rights to which they are perceived to be entitled (Twum-­Danso 2009a, 380). Therefore, the realization of Zanzibari ­children’s right to participation should be viewed as linked to their roles and relations with o ­ thers in their communities. An officer at the Department of ­Women and ­Children explained that “ ‘traditional’ means that p ­ eople must obey parents and grandparents. ‘Modern’ means, that c ­ hildren are given education about their rights and responsibilities and have changed their be­hav­ior.” Participatory approaches like engaging ­children in C ­ hildren’s Councils are thus considered “modern” and in opposition to what used to exist before. Acknowledging the existing va­ri­e­ties of c ­ hildren’s individual agency in the contexts where participatory approaches are applied reveals further nuances in how to protect ­children best. In addition, ‘giving voice’ to ­children is not simply or only about letting them speak (James 2007, 262). Depending on the contexts in which c ­ hildren participate—­whether they directly contest being hit, withhold information, or choose participation as a form of employment—­dif­fer­ent degrees of agency and participation are pos­si­ble in ­those spaces and in relation to the adults whom c ­ hildren encounter within them, and on whom c ­ hildren’s protection ultimately depends.

Participation as a Decline in Re­spect In Zanzibar, as noted, ­ children’s participation and rights education ­ were ­f requently considered a threat to the well-­being of the community and not, as intended by development actors, as primarily contributing to young ­people’s protection. Often, parents and teachers cited a decline in ­children’s re­spect (heshima) as a dangerous effect of participatory interventions. Zanzibari academic Amour Haji Hassan explained, “American ­children ­a ren’t hit. They give them rights (wanatoa haki) ­until they sue their parents (wanawashtaki wazee) in court. But that’s a big m ­ istake” (kosa kubwa). His idea about the empowering effect of rights leading to ­children destroying their ­family’s respectability and

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reputation is one example of the narrative I repeatedly encountered. Similarly, Bi Muna argued that “if a f­ather is brought to the police station by his own child, he has no more re­spect (hana heshima). Then what kind of nation are we building (tunajenga taifa gani)?” She emphasized the perceived harm inherent in ­children’s ability to claim their rights. Her despair over the f­ uture of the nation, if ­children are given that much power that they may destroy their parents’ honor in their communities, reflected her concern for the community’s general well-­being, which is impor­tant in small places like Zanzibar. Child participation was often understood as disrespectful, b ­ ecause “as a child you d ­ on’t have a voice to speak with (huna sauti ya kusema). To be respectful you just listen, and ­there is nothing like disapproving (kukataa) what is de­cided for you. Answering (kujibu) is disrespectful,” a local child protection worker emphasized. ­Children’s rights promotion in Zanzibar has even come to be considered as harmful to ­children, ­because it interferes with adults’ ability to be “good parents” (who teach proper be­hav­ior through discipline) and c ­ hildren’s fulfillment of their responsibilities in society (Wessels et al. 2013). This concern mirrors ­ those relating to the perpetuation of societal hierarchies, particularly regarding the potential contestation of someone’s “honor.”

Discursive Dissonance and the Instability of Concepts The vari­ous meanings of protection according to religious, cultural, and policy-­ political sense-­making show how one idea may be constituted in relation to completely dif­fer­ent points of reference and how a concept like “child protection” cannot be understood using only one perspective. Whereas the adult interlocutors understood protection through the discursive kidini (religious) and kitama­ duni (cultural) realms, young Zanzibaris’ ideas of protection emphasized physical health, care, and well-­being. They, as well as some adults, went beyond the aims of socialization to focus on integrity through social personhood, safety from vio­ lence and poverty, and fear of neglect. All ­these ideas ­were supplemented by the government’s and development institutions’ (kisiasa) systematized protection thinking, showing the vastly dif­fer­ent realms of thought that influence the concept. This threefold understanding of protection in Zanzibar leads to friction between and within each of t­ hese spheres, which I illustrate next with concrete examples. The linguistic real­ity that frames protection discourses illustrated the varied application of the ideas to prevent (kukinga) and to protect (kulinda). Explanations derived from sources of knowledge within Islam and Swahiliness of what protection is and does align with “prevention” (kinga), whereas global discourses on protection are dominantly framed through “protection” (ulinzi). Put differently, whereas the protection of c ­ hildren in a religious and cultural way of thinking is commonly interpreted as preventing c ­ hildren from potential risk, child

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protection in policy terms suggests the need for protection from existing harm. Following this logic, prevention indirectly identifies harm as coming from a specific direction or person, as is the case when thinking about protecting someone from a certain threat. The most explicit contradiction in ­these definitions of protection lies in my interlocutors’ conceptualizations of corporal punishment. Physical chastisement is l­egal in Zanzibar, and attempts to regulate it remain as vague recommendations left to individual interpretation. Despite continuing improvement efforts, protection ser­v ices are fragmented and criticized by teachers and parents for their lack of consistency and reach across and beyond the school environment (see chapter 5). In contrast to its problematization through child rights-­based protection programs, appropriate chastisement is often perceived not as a prob­ lem or as vio­lence but as a form of protection itself, which shapes the unformed child into the socially integrated person that he or she must become. In both religious and cultural discourse physical chastisement is considered a corrective tool that prevents c ­ hildren from failing to become good Muslims and social and morally responsible community members. In contrast, according to a universalized understanding of protection, the practice remains a threat from which ­children must be protected. Nancy Scheper-­Hughes has contested the idea of natu­ral parental “nurturance and protection” (1992, 411) of ­children and emphasized alternative ways of conceptualizing protection. She found that child protection on the Alto do Cruzeiro frequently occurs in the form of child theft. While considering radical interventions to save ­children’s lives, such as child theft, as justified and occasionally protective, she criticized their unpredictability as attacking “­women at the core of their fragile existence” and increasing “their feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness” (244). Relating her findings to my research reflects a similar logic at work in Zanzibar. Whereas corporal punishment is understood to make sense and be a protective and productive practice in the context of Muslim moral person-­making, child protection interventions aim to ban it and then face opposition for being seen as threatening as replacing Zanzibari morality. Ultimately, an understanding of ­children having rights—­ and particularly in relation to protection from their parents—­remains relatively recent (Morton 1996, 179), which may explain the difficulties that child protection interventions face in Zanzibar. This latter notion of corporal punishment emphasizes the threat that teachers and parents who hit pose to c ­ hildren, whereas the former stresses their guarding and guiding role in this pro­cess. Put differently, “protection,” as conceptualized on a policy level, emphasizes the negative notion of “harm,” rather than more positive ideas of “health,” “care,” and “well-­being,” as highlighted by ­children and adults in the other two discursive spheres. Acknowledging the negative and positive connotations of a preventive and protective framing of child protection reveals how t­ hese concepts collide, rather than reinforce each other.

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Only nonpolarizing approaches can acknowledge parents and teachers as protectors, who “intend to ensure that the child w ­ ill be firmly grounded in the polity and protected” (Argenti 2011, 287)—­and not exclusively as sources of harm, thereby foreclosing opportunities for genuinely improving ­children’s life situations. Therefore, the framework of prevention (kinga), which my research participants frequently used in place of protection, opposes the notion of protection (ulinzi), that policy-­based child protection interventions build on. Paying attention to vernacular protection and care practices for ­children is impor­tant for attempts to assure their safety and well-­being. Similarly to what Lucy Thairu and Gretel Pelto (2008) observed with programs that aim to reduce neonatal mortality in Pemba in Mozambique, programs that aim to reduce potential harm from corporal punishment “need to identify and address the cultural rationales that underlie negative practices, as well as reinforce and protect the beliefs that support positive practices” (2008, 194). Other­w ise—as Minou Fuglesang (1997) described in the context of public skepticism and re­sis­tance to sexuality education programs and contraceptive ser­v ices in Tanzania, which w ­ ere believed to cause promiscuity among the young, Zanzibari child protection programs w ­ ill face similar skepticism for being understood as contributing to ­children’s unruliness and lack of discipline.

Conclusion In this chapter I explored the multiple levels of interpretation of the idea of protection as they exist in Zanzibar. I discussed how protection is attributed dif­fer­ ent meanings in relation to Islam, Swahili-­ness, and (inter)national development to offer an overview of the discursive terrain within which international policy-­ related child protection approaches exist in the archipelago. T ­ hese approaches to child protection build on the assumption that c ­ hildren are insufficiently protected in their communities. Yet, this assumption does not fully agree with Zanzibari ideas about assuring ­ children’s safety. Zanzibari ­ children and adults understand protection in vari­ous ways and aim to keep c ­ hildren safe largely through educational initiation rites and protective Islamic practices, but also through physical chastisement to assure their moral development. Zanzibari authorities who administer ­these practices, like traditional healers who focus on c ­ hildren’s health, traditional birth attendants, and prac­ti­tion­ers of Qur’anic medicine, ­were considered impor­tant ­people in attempts to guarantee well-­ being. Partially serving ­children’s health needs, they w ­ ere also responsible for their spiritual needs and for sources of guidance regarding moral m ­ atters. ­These concepts reveal that c ­ hildren are understood to be protected all the time—­only in ways that fall outside one specific conceptualization and terminology. Therefore, a sole focus on one dominant discourse—in this case, the po­liti­cal one—­does not allow for a sufficient understanding of what protection,

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punishment, and personhood mean to p ­ eople outside standardized policy language spheres. It runs the danger of dismissing ideas that ­matter to communities but are neglected by universalized development proj­ects. It is evident that child protection is much more than what policy agendas ascribe, and it needs to be ­imagined beyond development discourses. Although vari­ous ideas about protection complement each other and overlap, they do not exist in­de­pen­dently of each other. Even though p ­ eople do dif­fer­ent or even contradictory t­ hings to assure ­children are safe, all share the intention of protecting a young person. Child protection prac­ti­tion­ers’ assumptions that ­children are insufficiently protected in their communities conflict with many Zanzibari adults’ and ­children’s views, who think they protect them all the time, only in ways that might not immediately align with policy notions of child protection. As Kirrily Pells suggests, taking c ­ hildren’s concepts of protection and risk seriously “would enable a shift from reaction to prevention and the injection of a political-­economy perspective to understand how broader structural inequalities put c ­hildren at risk” (2012, 572). That vernacular protection practices are overwhelmingly conceptualized in health terms and as prevention (kinga) from harm suggests the need to include this approach in programs that focus on protection (ulinzi) only. Other­w ise, ideas that m ­ atter to Zanzibari communities w ­ ill be neglected by universalized protection approaches, eventually causing t­hese programs’ rejection. I also discussed child protection approaches in view of their aim to facilitate participation. Demonstrating how participatory approaches often actually contest ­children’s protection led me to acknowledge the notion of c ­ hildren’s responsibilities as another ­factor in need of attention in Zanzibar. Without recognizing and building on ­children’s perceived responsibilities, and instead solely promoting their participation, protection programs face rejection for being seen as undermining c ­ hildren’s roles in their society by promoting “Western” ideas of childhood that result in moral decay and a loss of re­spect. T ­ hese insights emphasize the importance of restraining from conceptualizing ­children as separable groups in society and of promoting their participation without acknowledging the social networks they are part of and the relationships that define their well-­being. CRC-­based imaginations, which depict ­children as rights-­holders only and adults as duty-­bearers only, collide with Zanzibari views that consider both ­children and adults as holders of rights and b ­ earers of duty. ­Because child protection is a “state intervention in the lives of families by professionals” (Water­ house and McGee 2015, 11), child protection programs in Zanzibar should include a focus on all f­ amily members and should work with c ­ hildren as much as with parents and guardians. Ultimately, child protection prac­ti­tion­ers need to take the multilevel effects of poverty and in­equality of opportunity more seriously, ­because “the system has become so child oriented that it has lost sight of the needs of parents” (Daniel 2015, 128). To make protection policies and programs

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relevant to Zanzibari ­children and adults and not unintentionally disrupt their relationships and routines without improving their general life situations, programs should recognize how participatory approaches may contest c ­ hildren’s roles if they promote values that oppose what is considered respectable in Zanzibar—­such as outspokenness over silence or agency over obedience. ­Children’s relationships are inevitably interfered with when the private is no longer private but “intersects with the public” (Mayall 2011, 434). Protective interventions into one sphere of ­children’s lives si­mul­ta­neously imply interventions in ­others too, ­because the realms that ­children move between—­the home, the school, the community—­are intertwined. As ­Virginia Morrow and Jo Boyden point out, an individual’s well-­being cannot practically “be separated from the well-­being of the group to which that individual belongs,” ­because “individuals are integrally incorporated within families, clans, and other groups and not seen as existing outside ­those groups” (2014, 2914). Therefore, child protection approaches in Zanzibar could be more effective by critically engaging with “constructions of ­children as individuals who are unanchored in networks and communities” (Featherstone, White, and Morris 2014, 16). The fluctuating borders of the concept of protection, which always depend on who says what to whom, are key to understanding tensions inherent in the implementation of child protection programs. Bringing together the three main “cultures of protection,” reconstructing the domains around them, and contrasting them with the connotations they carry according to the c ­ hildren who are to be protected w ­ ill contribute to a more inclusive picture of the meanings ascribed to protection. In the next chapter, I consider how alternatives to corporal punishment, as suggested through protection programs, may turn into equally violent forms of punishment themselves and may have painful implications for c ­ hildren’s lives.

4 Child Protection in Zanzibar Schools

Pictured with a spoon full of ugali, or rice, in his hand, a boy seated at a ­table in a classroom eats what could be lunch: “­Children are supposed to have the right (kupata haki) to good food,” is written under­neath this first scene in a drawing titled “Adabu Mbadala (Alternative Discipline) by fifteen-­year-­old Malkia (see figure 4.1). Below and to the right, a girl bends over to sweep the floor: “Alternative punishments (adhabu mbadala) include sweeping or bringing school utensils (vifaa) like brooms (fyagio), dasta ­etc.,” reads Malkia’s explanation of this scene. On the bottom left, a male teacher canes a female student on her b ­ ehind, again with words added to elaborate: “A teacher is beating the student for the ­mistake of coming late” (kwa kosa la kuchelewa).

As depicted in ­these three scenes, child protection in Zanzibari schools takes place in a complex environment. Frequently this environment cannot guarantee the provision of ­children’s basic rights, such as to quality food. And although forms of discipline other than corporal punishment—­such as having to do chores around the school grounds or buy school equipment—­are initiated through child protection programs and indeed administered, corporal punishment by means of hitting with the cane continues to be a common form of chastisement for ­mistakes like coming late to class. This chapter examines the vari­ous ways in which c ­ hildren in Zanzibari primary schools experienced child protection mea­ sures soon a ­fter they ­ were implemented. By first drawing on young ­people’s accounts, the chapter emphasizes the challenges that Zanzibari students face when their teachers are made to turn to what c ­ hildren’s rights organ­izations consider to be alternative or “positive” forms of discipline. The translation and implementation of development indicators and goals in Zanzibar schools, which are typically considered 109

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FIGUR E 4.1  ​“Positive Discipline.” Drawing by Malkia, age fifteen.

“an unproblematic and straightforward task in international h ­ uman rights and development contexts” (Merry and Wood 2015, 10), played out in more complicated ways than anticipated by child protection policy makers. This chapter reveals how alternative forms of discipline, as promoted by child protection organ­izations, may themselves be potentially harmful practices.



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For this purpose, I draw on c ­ hildren’s feedback collected in Suggestion Boxes over a period of two years in ten primary schools that pi­loted Save the ­Children’s Positive Discipline program (adabu mbadala) during the time of my fieldwork. ­These suggestion notes show how a child protection program that aimed to achieve teachers’ be­hav­ior change by promoting forms of (nonviolent) discipline instead unintentionally promoted alternative forms of (harmful) punishment. The chapter also shows that, regardless of which form of punishment was considered appropriate, in Zanzibar ­there is consensus on the need for a variety of penalties to be available in the classroom to maintain order and to facilitate learning. Teachers held varied positions on the perceived need for both discipline and punishment in the classroom. A local UNICEF employee summarized the crux of the issue: “The prob­lem is how ­children are made to be disciplined. Through a friendly or a forceful way?” A ­ fter presenting teachers’ varied viewpoints, I examine what sort of aversive experience is considered most effective—­ one involving physical pain or one that exacted a social or monetary cost. In Zanzibar as elsewhere, the point at which corporal punishment “stops being ‘discipline’ and becomes ‘abuse’ is subjective” (Miller 2013, 157), I illustrate how individual actors, c ­ hildren and adults, make their own interpretations and choices in a complex and contradictory field s­ haped by culture, religion, and development aid (Chapin 2014). Further, ­because the aim of ­children’s socialization is achieving social personhood, which itself is considered a form of protection, I explore how anti-­ corporal punishment programs eventually jeopardize that goal. Alternative forms of discipline cannot achieve the same level of effectiveness in instilling discipline in Zanzibar, b ­ ecause they are not aligned with the religious and cultural meaning of childhood: ultimately they replace vio­lence with vio­lence. My discussion of ­children’s and teachers’ objections to and support for alternative discipline unravels disagreements that underlie the complex practical application and decontextualization of discipline and punishment, and how child rights organ­i zations use alternative discipline in practice. Recognizing that ­children’s own protection concerns do not fit easily into aid agendas (Crewe 2007) enables an understanding of why child protection interventions face opposition by teachers and students in Zanzibari schools and how they contribute to “rendering technical” c ­ hildren’s realities (Li 2007, 123).

Theory and Practice of “Positive Discipline” in Zanzibari Schools Positive Discipline “is a punishment that ­doesn’t harm someone’s body and mind” (haitomuathiri kimwili na kiakili), explained Mohammad, age fifteen. “If a child ­doesn’t understand in class, instead of beating them you should teach them with seriousness (kwa bidii) so they can understand and learn with care” (kwa makini). As presented in the previous chapter, child protection in Zanzibari

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schools most frequently takes a Positive Discipline approach—­the term that Save the ­Children uses to name its programs that intend to replace the use of corporal punishment as a form of discipline with alternatives to hitting in educational contexts. The young ­people who spoke to me at their primary schools offered concrete insights into what such alternative forms of discipline actually looked like. However, their definitions of Positive Discipline referred to both adabu mbadala (alternative discipline) and adhabu mbadala (alternative punishment) interchangeably, illustrating the ambiguity in regard to which term to use. This lack of clarity was found not only in the young ­people’s accounts but was also one of the key misunderstandings and mistranslations of globalized ideas about Positive Discipline into a local Zanzibari-­Swahili understanding. This became particularly clear when I asked the head of the governmental Unit for Alternative Forms of Discipline (Kitengo cha Uhamasishaji wa Utumiaji wa Adhabu Mbadala Maskulini) about the discrepancy between Save the ­Children’s use of adabu mbadala to describe the Positive Discipline program and the Unit’s use of adhabu mbadala in its name (Fay 2016, 25). According to Khalid, the dif­fer­ent use was merely a m ­ istake that had yet to be corrected: “When the name of the Unit was agreed we c ­ ouldn’t decide w ­ hether to use adabu or adhabu, and only l­ater realized that we should have used adabu, ­because that’s what Save the ­Children use and ­because it’s a more positive term for discipline than adhabu.” According to one of my teenage research participants, sixteen-­year-­old Nayla, “adhabu mbadala is amongst t­ hose punishments that do not hurt c ­ hildren much. The government has forbidden to beat students ­because some teachers ­don’t know how to hit (hawajui kupiga) and injure them” (wanawaumiza). Her emphasis on the nonviolent approach that Positive Discipline intended to instill was repeated in several other descriptions that students offered of the meaning of the concept. For Fadil, age thirteen, it was “an action done to someone to teach them something without harm (bila ya kuleta athari) for the one administering the punishment or the receiver. Often this type of punishment is used in schools, madrasas and homes to educate society. Instead of using the cane, another punishment is used to make someone not repeat their ­mistake again (asirudie ­ ater e ­ tc.” And for fifteen-­year-­old tena kosa), like cleaning a big area, fetching w Muna, “alternative punishments” (adhabu mbadala), as most ­children referred to them, included “watering and planting in the school garden (kupanda bustani), slashing leaves (kuyeka majani), picking up papers, cleaning toilets, or picking up one thousand seeds of ubuyu kernels [fruit of the baobab/Myubi tree] when coming late.” At madrasa, fifteen-­year-­old Suhaila explained, “If I come half an hour late, I have to stay half an hour longer when the ­others leave. If I cause chaos (ghasia) by chatting to my friends, the teacher (ustadhi) makes me sit alone.” And twelve-­ year-­old Amal wrote, “When I make a ­mistake (ninapokosea), I am denied a



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pre­sent or money to use in school or I am punished with having to clean the ­whole ­house.” Ten-­year-­old Hemedi said that “another way of adhabu mbadala is to reduce c ­ hildren’s freedom by isolating them from their friends for some time or giving them small work during their play time.” Their views make clear that, according to their understanding of Positive Discipline, alternative forms of punishment are intended to correct their be­hav­ior as is physical chastisement, with the main difference being that it is a nonphysically violent way to administer punishment. Despite the apparent widespread clarity around Positive Discipline being a form of nonviolent correction, the approach was frequently called into question, and I observed l­ ittle uniformity in how it was used. Some teachers applied it and some did not; some supported it and some opposed it, with the latter slightly outnumbering the former. Rukia, age fifteen, estimated that “30% agree with it, and 70% continue to use the stick” (mikwaju/viboko). Sixteen-­year-­old Jamila insisted that “a student should receive punishments like sweeping (kufagia) or cleaning (kusafisha) that are impor­tant for their health or carry­ing ­water to the toilets. But many teachers use the cane to correct them.” Her emphasis on the discrepancy between the intended application and the real­ity of teachers’ disciplinary approaches calls for closer investigation. The substitute punishment for caning I encountered most frequently was making students buy brooms for their respective schools. Consider thirteen-­year-­ old Arkam’s story of a teacher who warns that “­every student who w ­ ill come late tomorrow must bring a broom (aje na fagio) to school. If he d ­ oesn’t, their parents must come. Other­w ise the student ­w ill have to stop coming to school” (asi­ mamishe skuli). The explicit consequence—­school suspension—if a child was unable to meet this demand emphasizes the complications inherent in this form of supposedly Positive Discipline. Requiring monetary compensation, instead of causing the child pain as a means of retribution, placed impoverished students in difficult situations. Making c ­ hildren supply school equipment like brooms was the example many of my child and adult in­for­mants considered most representative of the Positive Discipline program’s unintended consequences. As Michael Bourdillon (2014, 499) pointed out, Protective mea­sures can interfere with relations between ­children and the communities on whom they depend; and when interventions do disturb relationships, they can sometimes adversely affect the physical security and the psycho-­social state of the ­children concerned, to the extent of being more harmful than the par­tic­u ­lar ­hazard from which t­hese ­children w ­ ere to be protected.

If care and protection systems disregard “­children’s perspectives and a lack of accountability for ­children’s care,” as occurred in Elizabeth Cooper’s research context in K ­ enya, ­ children may be directly “put at additional risk,” which

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naturally would lead to an increase in distrust of that system (2012, 487). Interestingly, c ­ hildren w ­ ere not the only ones to suffer from t­ hese alternative forms of discipline and to consider them problematic; their teachers and local child protection actors responsible for their implementation did so as well. Bi Kheirat, an assistant headteacher, told me, Positive Discipline is not a form of correction. It is a burden for us teachers. But we have the ministry’s order to use it, so we do it. Our teachers ­don’t know any alternative forms of discipline, so now we just make the ­children pay 500 shillings (GBP 0.18) or make them buy and bring a broom to school as a punishment instead of hitting them. But c ­ hildren strug­gle to pay the money. We teachers suggested to the ministry that c ­ hildren should only bring 100 shillings (GBP 0.03), but they ­didn’t agree.

Students and teachers equally emphasized that alternative forms of discipline ­were not effective in correcting c ­ hildren’s be­hav­ior, b ­ ecause they did not affect ­children directly, but instead extended the punishment to parents. Primary school teacher Bi Zuhaila explained, If ­children must bring brooms as alternative discipline, the child’s ­mistake extends, and the punishment returns to the parent (itarudi kwa mzazi). Cane them once or twice, and the punishment is already finished (adhabu ishamaliza). This ­thing [Positive Discipline] was brought to us (tunaletewa kitu). We did not decide this path. That t­here are no schools that have ­stopped using the cane completely shows that Positive Discipline does not work.

Even though replacing physical chastisement with monetary punishments was not directly specified in the regulations of the Positive Discipline programs, that is what was put into practice. As a result, the programs w ­ ere widely perceived as inappropriate and as a source of harm, rather than protection. A director at the MoEVT, which organizes the implementation of the program on a national scale, shared her critique of the program: I ­don’t encourage making ­children buy brooms. It means sending them to bring that amount of money and in town they cost 500 shillings. ­Here we d ­ on’t have trees from which to cut branches for brooms, so ­children have to buy them. But that is expensive, and they w ­ on’t be able to. Positive Discipline also depends on the environment. One day we caught a child stealing eggs to sell them, so he could get money to buy a broom. You can see its harm (athari yake). We say we build/form (tunawatengeneza) our ­children, but then we turn them into thieves. That’s why I oppose the program. The teachers h ­ aven’t understood Positive Discipline yet; other­ wise they w ­ ouldn’t do such ­things.



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Her assessment seemed to be less a rejection of the aims of Positive Discipline but of how the ministry itself interpreted the policy and how local teachers w ­ ere implementing it, reflecting the variety of viewpoints that exists within each discursive sphere in which child protection knowledge is produced. A local Child Protection Unit employee acknowledged that harm may be caused both by corporal punishment and alternative forms of discipline if they are misinterpreted or applied in the wrong way: When you hit a child, they get hurt even if you d ­ on’t see a mark (alama), ­because when you hit with the cane, or even just a pen (kalamu), they w ­ ill get pain (maumivu anayapata). The child ­w ill develop hate and chronic be­hav­ior. Corporal punishment d ­ oesn’t only mean hitting—­even words can be corporal punishment. Every­thing that ­causes pain, internally, psychologically, even if it ­doesn’t show, affects the child’s mind (anaathirika kiakili).

Even though child protection programs w ­ ere intended to eradicate both physical and humiliating forms of punishment, the alternatives to corporal punishment often w ­ ere based on obviously violent and humiliating techniques. The restriction of the cane and the promotion of other forms of discipline seem to have increased the use of humiliating forms of punishment, which may be seen as more acceptable b ­ ecause the injuries they cause are not as vis­i­ble. Thus, vis­ i­ble vio­lence is replaced with less vis­i­ble forms of vio­lence that often further complicate ­children’s already complex lives. It is clear that buying brooms or other school equipment as an alternative form of discipline creates new burdens for ­children in poor countries, who may find supplying goods more complicated than dealing with being caned. Parents have l­imited and insufficient financial means to “pay extra” to compensate for their c ­ hildren’s misbehavior at school and may end up physically punishing their c ­ hildren for costing them money. That is why some students prefer caning to this financial burden, which creates an additional obstacle that must be encountered and navigated when development programs affect their lives. The harm of monetary penalties as a replacement for physical chastisement, as well as other misappropriations of Positive Discipline and challenges students face, became even more vis­i­ble through a feedback mechanism that was established at the schools to gain insights into how changes in chastisement w ­ ere received.

Suggestion Boxes: Students’ Lived Experiences of “Positive Discipline” “Where is the Suggestion Box?” Nadia, a local Save the C ­ hildren employee, asks as we enter the head teacher’s office at Miembe Mitatu school in March 2014. Mwalimu Rashid points to the corner of the room where we can see a small wooden box with a slit top and a stack of unrelated papers

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FIGUR E 4.2  ​A ‘Suggestion Box’ filled with school utensils, 2015.

sitting on it. He opens it, and inside are hundreds of small folded notes. Nadia takes one, blows the dust off it, and quickly reads it. “We ­haven’t opened the box since it was put ­here in 2012, but we put it outside almost ­every day so students can put their notes inside. The person who was in charge before Nadia never came back to check on them; I think they work somewhere e ­ lse now,” Mwalimu Rashid explains.

In 2012, when the Positive Discipline program was first implemented, Suggestion Boxes ­were installed at the program’s pi­lot schools in the urban district of Zanzibar. They w ­ ere intended to serve as a feedback mechanism for c ­ hildren to express their opinions on the alternative forms of discipline their teachers ­were starting to use. When I began my fieldwork in early 2014, I observed that ­these boxes, some of which ­were full of ­children’s notes, had rarely or ever been opened or the notes inside read; some w ­ ere full of miscellaneous objects instead (see figure 4.2). A ­ fter Save the C ­ hildren gave me permission to read the notes, I collected a total of 1,342 ­little letters from seven of the ten pi­lot schools and read what ­children had wanted to communicate.1 I ­here include selected notes, all anonymous, from two of the seven Suggestion Boxes I reviewed. The Suggestion Box from Hewanzuri Primary School contained 138 notes, and that from Kisamaki Primary School held 329 letters. The most frequent themes ­were students’ critique not only of the continuation of caning but also of the disciplinary



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mea­sures their teachers had started using to replace it. Notes from the students at Hewanzuri school contained ­these statements: Students should not be hit b ­ ecause it hurts. We want caning (mikwaju) to be reduced ­because some students are ill, and please ­don’t hit us on our heads. When a teacher is annoyed by one student, he should not insult (kuwaha­ makia) all students, ­because some just want to study. My question is, Has adhabu mbadala started? If that means that we students should not be hit, why are we being hit ­today? If the cane worked, then a donkey would be professor (punda angekua pro­ fesa), ­because donkeys get hit all the time. Elders and teachers should not use the cane to develop good education (kuendeleza elimu kuwa bora).

Students from Kisamaki added to this refrain: ­There should be less caning for latecomers b ­ ecause many live far away.

The cane should be decreased (zipunguwe) and ­there should be more books. ­Don’t teach us in anger (kwa hasira). If you do, we d ­ on’t understand at all, and ­don’t hit us with the cane (mikwaju) so much. We want our teachers to not hit us on the head. They should hit us on the waist (kiuno). We hope you agree with our opinion. Please decrease the use of the cane and give us alternative punishments (adhabu mbadala). We should only be hit when we make big m ­ istakes (makosa makubwa). The cane is still used at our school, so we are asking that teachers ­shouldn’t hit us. We are tired” (tumechoka)!

Other students commented more generally on the teaching styles they encounter: Teachers should be close to students in their studies so they can learn well. Teachers s­ houldn’t be so strict (wakali) ­because the students fear them. We would like the teachers to teach with kindness/love (upendo) and to not discriminate (wasibague) against some students. It makes us sad that some of the teachers have this be­hav­ior. I, as a student, ask that teachers stop this be­hav­ior (tabia).

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Students’ objections to being physically chastised, the way it was administered, and the pain it caused are evident in the notes. They also questioned the effectiveness of the Positive Discipline program, ­because it did not improve their situation. ­ These notes from Hewanzuri school students address the new “alternatives”: Adabu mbadala does not mean having your money taken away (kutoleshwa pesa). We inform you that teachers ­don’t give us the punishment you intended. They take our money ­every day. Is this adhabu mbadala or a payment? The teachers take from us what our parents give us. This is adhabu mbadala. This is not a real school. They take away the money our parents give us.

The “Positive Discipline” c ­ hildren experience—­referred to as both adabu and adhabu mbadala—­replaced caning with a demand for money from the ­children. This use of the “alternative punishment” of making them buy brooms was received very negatively: ­Don’t make us bring brooms—we d ­ on’t have money. Please dismiss (ondosha) the broom punishment (adhabu ya mafyagio). Our parents ­don’t have money and we depend on them. ­There are some teachers who force students to buy ­things for them, and if you h ­ aven’t bought it, they hit you. ­Those who live far away should not have to bring brooms or money.

Notes from Kisamaki school students shed further light on the broom punishment: Please decrease the brooms (mafagio yapungue). When students are late, just hit them three or two times. Let’s not beat t­ hose who live far and let’s not make them bring brooms. The conductors (makonda) are the prob­lem; they only take you if you have 200 shillings. O ­ thers live far away. ­There should be a lot of caning (mikwaju kwa wingi), more than having to bring brooms (kutolesha mifyagio). I have a question: If a student d ­ oesn’t have the means (hana uwezo) to buy two brooms but the teacher ­w ill cane him/her, does that mean that you, the teacher, have done well (umefanya vyema)?



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FIGUR E 4.3  ​“In my opinion the cane should remain (bakora ziendelee) b ­ ecause

without the cane the students ­w ill not have manners (adabu).” Anonymous note.

When we are late, d ­ on’t make us bring brooms. It is better for us to be hit (bora tupigwe mikwaju) ­because brooms have become expensive.

As can be seen, Kisamaki school students asked that they be caned rather than have to pay for brooms (see figure 4.3). Many favored caning’s continuation as a means to curb other students’ bad be­hav­ior that was disrupting their own educational experiences: We should continue being hit b ­ ecause students ­don’t have enough good discipline (nidhamu). We want latecomers or absentees (watoro) to be punished harshly (wapewe adhabu kali) ­because we come early. The cane should continue b ­ ecause students lack discipline (nidhamu) like ­those who come late, make noise (mazogo) in class, and d ­ on’t do their work. Without the cane, students ­w ill cross the bound­aries (wataruka mipaka), so the cane should continue (viboko viendelee) when students make ­mistakes. Being hit is better for us. If we are not hit (tusipopigwa) we w ­ ill come late, ­won’t write, ­won’t re­spect our teachers, ­won’t go when our teachers send us somewhere, w ­ on’t have manners and w ­ ill do ­things that are not allowed at school. ­ ecause if we are not I want the cane to be used appropriately (ipasavyo) b hit, we w ­ ill think, ah, they d ­ on’t hit us; well then we can do what­ever we want (ninafanya ninayotaka) like coming late to school or being disrespectful.

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Disillusioned with how Positive Discipline was implemented, most of my young interlocutors thus supported a combination of alternative forms of discipline ­ eople (adabu mbadala) and regular modes of punishment (adhabu/bakora). Young p like Abduli (age fourteen) explained that it was “not that adhabu mbadala should not be ­there, but that the cane should also be t­ here.” Students’

contradictory

and

conflicting

perspectives

on

physical

punishment—­their simultaneous rejection of excessive caning and the infliction of pain and their support for the continuation of corporal punishment—­reflect how they “are caught in tension between aspirations of the global model of childhood and youth ­imagined in neo-­liberal policies, and local experiences and environments” (Morrow 2013, 267). Although the child protection program in Zanzibar theoretically aimed to improve ­children’s life situations, in practice it failed to do so. Students’ notes show the tensions caused by this specific child protection approach and offer concrete examples of its misappropriations. The application of alternative punishments caused students new difficulties and may even have increased their risk of physical punishment at home for requiring that their parents pay for their misbehavior at school. In Zanzibar, as Sara Humphreys observed in Botswana, most students w ­ ere not, in fact, against corporal punishment per se “but against its abuse” (2008, 532). The majority of students at the pi­lot schools rejected the use of supposedly “better” alternatives that turned out to be worse ones. The administration of corporal punishment had enabled students to navigate school prob­lems in­de­pen­dently, whereas the alternatives interfered with their ability to manage situations on their own without involving their families. Within the international child rights discourse, from which the concept of Positive Discipline stems, making m ­ istakes is seen as a part of learning, and discipline is a collaborative pro­cess in which teacher and student work together to correct m ­ istakes and are brought closer by this shared responsibility. The hitting approach, viewed through the Zanzibari-­Swahili and Islamic cultural and religious lens, suggests the opposite—­that students alone are responsible for correcting their wrongdoing. The Positive Discipline program as implemented at ­these Zanzibari schools interfered with ­children’s ability to be responsible young ­people.

‘Positive Discipline Should Be T ­ here, but the Cane Should Be ­ There Too’: Teachers’ Reflections on Discipline and Punishment The Suggestion Box notes reflect the c ­ hildren’s perceptions on the personal effects of the alternative forms of discipline as well as their aspirations for the community. Contrasting them with teachers’ perceptions of Positive Discipline completes the picture of the community’s reception of the program. Some teachers w ­ ere dedicated supporters of the cane, and some w ­ ere not: nevertheless, not one supported only one approach to discipline. Their perspectives ranged across



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a spectrum of reasoning and logic, sometimes contradicting themselves, sometimes with a clearer preference for one practice or the other. Although many in­for­mants found positive aspects about alternative forms of discipline, most teachers felt the cane was more effective in correcting misbehavior. A common statement was a variation on this theme: “­There should be two systems (mifumo miwili): Positive Discipline should be ­there, and the cane should be ­there too,” a head teacher stated. And a religious representative at the Mufti’s Office emphasized, “We need both adabu mbadala and the cane. We are not ready to follow only one system” (mfumo moja). And another head teacher argued: “Both systems should be ­there. Corporal punishment should not be abolished immediately. Only using words in classes of eighty students is not enough. You have to use the cane if necessary (inapobidi). Not to injure the child, but to correct them (kumrekebisha) and their be­hav­ior (tabia).” For Positive Discipline techniques and the cane to exist alongside each other in schools was frequently considered necessary by both c ­ hildren and adults, as alternative forms of discipline w ­ ere not satisfactory replacements for the cane’s perceived effectivity.

Teachers More in F ­ avor of the Cane Many teachers acknowledged the positive effect of alternative forms of discipline in improving teacher–­student relationships but also considered it impossible to discipline students without caning, at least for certain m ­ istakes and when used in a “controlled” manner. Bi Latifa, who has taught students between the ages of ten to twelve in standards 5 and 6 at Barani School since 2007, explained that “the cane corresponds with the weight of the m ­ istake, like if you hit your fellow student. Or if you have told the student before and they still despise you (anaku­ dharau). Then you need to use the cane.” Bi Shinuna, a young En­glish teacher, elaborated on the proper use of caning: We s­ topped hitting when students come late. The ministry d ­ oesn’t like it—­they want adabu mbadala. Now we make them bring brooms (kuleta fagio) or pick up trash (kuokota taka). Only bringing brooms is not enough to correct a child (kumrekebisha mtoto). The cane is better. Hitting hurts (itamwuma) students and corrects their be­hav­ior (itarekebisha tabia yake) as they w ­ ill be afraid (hofu). Only three strokes—­don’t hit them like donkeys. It should not harm them (isimathiri). For big prob­lems, you take them to the head teacher. Parents are part of the prob­lem; they set us back (wanaturejesha nyuma). When a child is hit, they come to school furious. Now ­there is hatred (chuki) between parents and teachers. When I was in school, my parents just agreed with what the teachers did. That’s why the ministry now makes us use adabu mbadala. Globalization (utandawazi) affects our c ­ hildren, and this goes against Zanzibari morals (kinyume ya maadili ya kizanzibari).

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Bi Shinuna thus perceived that it was the MoEVT that was forcing her to use alternative forms of discipline. Her emphasis on the lack of communication between teachers and parents identifies an impor­tant gap in the implementation of protection approaches. A head teacher, Bi Lulu, noted, “Parents come h ­ ere furious (wanakasirika). ‘This t­ hing you started—­get rid of it now (ondosheni)!’ They come ­ because at home ­ children ­ a ren’t listening to them anymore ­because at school they s­ topped hitting. Many parents ­don’t want this program [Positive Discipline].” The monetization of punishment, as in the broom example, increases conflict at home b ­ ecause it transfers the penalty from the pupil’s body to his or her time, in the form of l­abor to the h ­ ouse­hold. It does not eliminate corporal punishment but just moves it from the educational to the home context, where students continue to be hit and maybe even more so than at school. According to standard 5 teacher Mwalimu Ahmed, w ­ hether parents hit their ­children “depends on how c ­ hildren are raised at home.” If they are struck at home, eliminating the practice at school ­w ill not immediately affect the home context. On the contrary, banning caning only at school may negatively affect ­children’s home situations, if students must instead ask their parents to pay for their m ­ istakes or if they misbehave more t­ here, b ­ ecause t­ here are no serious consequences at school. Sumaya, a child protection activist with an international NGO, put it bluntly: ­There is a gap between home and school. C ­ hildren in the program are not hit at school but are hit at home. When they come to school and ­there is no punishment, they think they can misbehave without consequences. The day ­after Miembe Miwili became a child-­f riendly school, only 10% of ­children came on time. Previously, being late was punished, but now no one cares. Students d ­ on’t have the responsibility to be on time. They come early b ­ ecause of the canes and to avoid being hit. We need to achieve that ­children are not hit at school and at home. Other­w ise they get confused.

Mwalimu Rama, the assistant head teacher at Hewanzuri School, noted that some parents may be against caning in school and o ­ thers say that hitting is required by tradition and custom: For adabu mbadala ten students have to buy one broom for 500 shillings. Or we make them write: “Teacher, I have ­stopped (nishakoma), I ­won’t do it again (sirejee tena),” or pick up 200 ubuyu kernels. A challenge is that for students not to be hit means being ­free (kuwa huru). Parents complain (kulaumu) that our tradition (mila) and custom (desturi) says a child must be smacked (achapwe). Some parents approve of not hitting, b ­ ecause they love them a lot (wanawapenda sana) or b ­ ecause it was their own parents’ be­hav­ior. If the cane is removed immediately (moja kwa moja), ­there ­w ill be no discipline.



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Physical punishment is used to keep order in large classes, to enforce punctuality, and to achieve learning goals through instilling fear. Eliminating it at school disturbs the previously established order t­ here and is inconsistent with its presence at home and other spaces. Parents need to be told directly about the discipline changes implemented in school and not rely on c ­ hildren who act as messengers by asking them for brooms or money. As one teacher explained, “To fulfill the aim of the adabu mbadala program, we need the cooperation ­ hole society (jamii)—­parents, teachers, and students must (mashirikiano) of the w work together.” Teachers thus suggest that an integrated approach that considers both school and home is necessary for the Positive Discipline program to succeed. For example, Mwalimu Zubeid, a standard 6 teacher from Barani School, told me, We lack parents’ cooperation (ushirikiano ya wazazi). Elders ­don’t cooperate at all (hawana mashirikiano kabisa) . . . . Parents complain about us not using the cane anymore. They claim it is the way religion (namna ya dini) tells us to raise a child, but they d ­ on’t acknowledge that even in religion ­there are certain procedures (taratibu). We try to use alternative forms of discipline, but we also continue using the cane if ­these methods ­don’t work. Four strokes are the maximum. We have s­ topped beating (kupiga tumeacha), but we still smack (kuchapa tunaendelea).

Note his nuanced distinction between hitting and smacking, which reflects that caning when used as a disciplinary tool is considered a nonviolent practice. Bi Halima, who has taught standard 6 at Hewanzuri since 2003, took another approach: “I d ­ on’t use the cane (viboko) when students make m ­ istakes. Only when they lack discipline. The cane confuses them” (itamchanganya). Differentiating among the purposes of caning, she believed that hitting is only justified when the aim is to rebuild adabu, but not to correct minor ­mistakes. She claimed that “alternatives like fetching ­water are not enough for them to correct themselves” (kujirekebisha), ­because they are not useful in helping ­children correct their own be­hav­ior in the long run. Bi Kheirat also advocated using both caning and alternative forms of discipline: it is “not enough to only use Positive Discipline—­the cane still needs to be ­there a l­ ittle bit,” and “the Prophet himself was hit a lot, so without being disciplined, c ­ hildren cannot be educated.” Despite acknowledging the potentially harmful effects of caning, she rejected the idea of learning and growing up without physical chastisement. Although teachers generally supported limiting the use of caning, many thought it was the only means to ensure students would display adequate levels of re­spect and piety. The teachers in an anti-­corporal punishment program in Saudi Arabian schools made similar claims, just as ­those programs faced comparable objections from teachers and parents. In Saudi Arabia, teachers argued that “banning corporal punishment in public schools ­will be a big threat to teachers,”

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­because students would not “pay attention” and would disrespect them.2 Saudi Arabia and Tanzania are among the few countries that have not officially banned corporal punishment: t­ hese findings reflect the precarious foundations such programs are built on, which easily offer space for contestation to opponents. A ­ fter his lesson, I speak to Mwalimu Mahamudu, a blind teacher of vocational studies (elimu amali) for standard 5 at Kisamaki since 2010, who explained his philosophy of punishment: ­Don’t be too strict (mkali). But when c ­ hildren are not scared of teachers, they ­don’t re­spect them. I hit them (nawagomba) ­because occasionally they disrespect me. Adabu mbadala is good (inafaa) for m ­ istakes like making noise (akipiga kilele). But the c ­ hildren are so many, and a teacher is also just a h ­ uman being (binadamu). First you forbid them (unamkataza), but then you hit them (halafu umpige), but carefully (kwa taratibu). Hurting (kuumiza) is not intended (si lengo lake), only teaching them manners (kumtia adabu).

His logic echoed the potential of Positive Discipline to build friendly classroom environments, but he cited the challenges posed by extremely large class sizes and the familiar trope that hitting is not intended to injure, but only to correct be­hav­ior. The purpose of punishment and its close connection to religion and culture as further rationalizations for its use w ­ ere stressed by Mwalimu Ali, a standard 6 history, Arabic, and religion teacher at Kisamaki: Teaching in a participatory way (njia shirikishi) is impor­tant. Not only teachers should talk in class. But a roll of seventy to a hundred ­children in each class affects the lesson. ­There is no cane on my desk, but when a child crosses the bound­a ries (anapozidi mipaka), we can correct them (kumrekebisha). They are troublemakers (wakorofi). We follow our Prophet’s (mtume wetu) ­orders and smack them (wachape) from the age of ten if they refuse to pray. It’s just sunna.

The fear of losing what is considered Zanzibari “tradition” is another reason why t­ here is opposition to new ways to discipline ­children in class.

Teachers Less in F ­ avor of the Cane Only few teachers completely rejected the use of the cane, but some teachers ­were more disapproving of it. Bi Fatuma, who has taught at Barani for seventeen years, explained, “If you are close to the ­children, they w ­ ill love learning (wata­ penda kusoma) and participate in the lesson. Making them laugh is impor­tant. We want them to come to class.” Bi Mariyasa, a popu­lar sports teacher, added, “I ­don’t like the stick ( fimbo). Hitting (kupiga) hurts the child (inamwumiza). If they bring brooms, the case is settled already (kesi imemaliza). I am happy about the program” (mradi). Their support for Positive Discipline and rejection of the cane



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­were echoed by Bi Mariam from Hewanzuri: “Adabu mbadala is good b ­ ecause ­children lose their mind (anailoose mind yake) if they are always beaten, and it makes their be­hav­ior chronic” (inamtia usugu). Nevertheless, she added that, “in the end, e ­ very teacher decides themselves w ­ hether to use the cane for up to three strokes or to use adabu mbadala”: each is ­f ree to interpret how to apply corporal punishment b ­ ecause ­there are no regulations on its use. Mwalimu Abdalhassan, who teaches Arabic and Islamic studies in standard 6 at Kisamaki to a class of more than seventy-­five students, preferred giving lectures (mawaidha) or providing explanations rather than using the cane, ­because “it hurts (inamwumiza) the child.” Yet, “if you told them two or three times already and they still ­don’t listen, then you need it. Adabu mbadala teaches ­children but it is not always enough” (haitoshi). Thus, t­ hose teachers who disagree with the normalized use of the cane in the classroom still resort to it to instill fear, which they perceive as necessary to establish authority and re­spect between students and teachers. Holding “the notion that learning, or at least concentration, is effectively maintained through pain or the threat of pain” implies that “a tap on the head or back is not necessarily meant as punishment” (Last 2000, 377). Bi Warda, who taught standard 6, explained the role that habit plays in students’ self-­discipline and in teachers’ methods of discipline: Since the start of the adabu mbadala program ­there is no more smacking (kuchapa). Sometimes this works, but sometimes it ­ doesn’t. African ­children (watoto wa Afrika) ­don’t understand if you tell them, “­Don’t do this!” (Usifanye!) Instead of punishing I explain to them, but they still ­don’t listen. We are already used to it (tumeshazoea). Now, we must get used to not d ­ oing it anymore (lazima kuzoea kuacha).

Her idea of needing to break the habit of caning by de-­normalizing its ordinary use was reiterated by Mwalimu Abdoulghafur, a standard 6 teacher of En­glish and history in a class of sixty-­five students, who pointed out structural difficulties in c ­ hildren’s learning environments and living circumstances that make change difficult: The environment (mazingira) is not nice. The neighborhood ­children (watoto wa mtaani) throw urine (mkojo) and stones into the classes. ­There are books only for standards 1 to 4, but none for standards 5 to 6. Many students are absent, and some ­don’t come at all, except for exams. Fridays are like holidays and many stay away. We send letters to their parents, make them w ­ ater the garden, arrange the stones, but they see it as fun and it d ­ oesn’t bother them. For African countries adabu mbadala has no use (haifai). C ­ hildren d ­ on’t care and d ­ on’t see it as punishment. Teachers and parents must cooperate. The cane d ­ oesn’t raise anyone/anything (hailei kitu); it just increases chronicity (usugu). If you hit them, they ­won’t

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come to school at all. But when a child insults a teacher, t­ here is no other way.

Bi Mariam, an En­glish and civics teacher for twenty years, supported the use of the cane in some circumstances: “We come from the cane (tunatokea bakora), ­ eople inherit (wanarithi). If I was hit durso we use the cane (tunatumia bakora). P ­ ill also hit. Adabu mbadala is good b ­ ecause it ing my upbringing (nilipolelewa), I w is about collaboration and friendliness. But for naughty ­children (watukutu) discipline (nidhamu) continues to drop. If necessary, we use the cane, for example, when they insult someone.” The head teacher at Barani insisted, “The environment ­isn’t easy. It is how we ­were raised (tulivyolelewa) and where we come from (tunapotokea). African ­children (watoto wa kiafrika) are unruly (wakaidi) . . . . They are already used to being hit (wameshazoea kuchapwa)—it is normal (kawaida) for them. That’s why alternative discipline does not work. If you give them a task, they simply d ­ on’t do it.” Using ­these generalizations to explain the difficulties of letting go of a practice that has been engrained over de­cades and of accepting alternative forms of discipline reflected teachers’ complex positions. According to many of my interlocutors, the perceived conflict between vernacular child-­rearing practices and alternative forms of chastisement had influenced their rejection of Positive Discipline. The headteacher’s explanation emphasized this link: Students’ latecoming (uchelewaji) has increased. They misbehave b ­ ecause they know they w ­ on’t be hit. Parents complain (kulaumu)—­“our tradition (mila) says we have to smack (kuchapa) our ­children if they lack manners” (adabu). Immediately eliminating the cane destroys students’ discipline (nidhamu). Parents even demand (wanadai) that we hit their ­children. When we explain to them, they disagree, and refer to the Prophet (mtume).

The belief that alternative discipline increases c ­ hildren’s unruliness prevails among Zanzibari teachers. Therefore, to effectively reduce caning in Zanzibari schools, it is necessary “to change the belief that removing corporal punishment equates to removing all discipline from the classroom” (Feinstein and Mwahombela 2010, 408). This may improve teachers’ understanding of how to effectively use alternative forms of discipline. This assemblage of teachers’ views reflects the diverse opinions about how to establish a positive learning environment without forcefully imposing order through use of the cane in their very large classes. Regarding corporal punishment in Zanzibari schools, Amour Haji Hassan and Theodora Bali (2013) observed that, although teachers claimed to decrease the use of physical chastisement, most continued to employ a combination of corporal punishment and alternative forms of discipline. Furthermore, teachers’ perceptions of the cane’s “effectiveness in enhancing pupils’ academic per­for­mance and discipline” differed



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widely (10f). They found that teachers’ overwhelming support of both corporal punishment and alternative forms of discipline showed that Zanzibari society is not yet ready to legally abolish corporal punishment (11). I want to go further and suggest that the question should not be w ­ hether a society is ready to legally abolish a harmful practice, ­because determining that point in time is very difficult. Instead it should be how efforts can be made to prepare Zanzibari society to legally ban corporal punishment and replace it with alternative forms of discipline. Positive Discipline programs may fail ­because their practical implementation results in equally, rather than less, harmful forms of punishment. The deployment of fear in the classroom through use of the cane is the institutional equivalent of the individualized chastisement (adhabu) that is part of child-­rearing. Si­mul­ta­neously, its threat is a way of compensating for an insufficient education infrastructure, manifested by large class sizes and a lack of books and learning materials that may help keep students engaged in their own learning. Similarly, in mainland Tanzanian schools, teachers “believed time, ­limited resources and large class size contributed to resorting to a swift means of managing students” (Feinstein and Mwahombela 2010, 405), and in Indian schools, “many punishments w ­ ere linked to the poor conditions for teaching and learning in schools” (Morrow and Singh 2015, 72). With larger quantities of more enriching teaching materials, smaller classes, and more support for teachers from Zanzibar’s MoEVT, decreasing and eventually eliminating the use of caning and increasing their willingness to implement Positive Discipline programs ­w ill become more feasible.

Child Protection or “Alternative Punishment”? The changes in the Positive Discipline classrooms in Zanzibar translate into “alternative punishment, as seen both in ­children’s perceptions and in teachers’ explanations for why they support a combination of Positive Discipline and corporal punishment. Regarding child protection aspirations, in Zanzibari schools, dif­fer­ent moral compasses, with dif­fer­ent goals of discipline and chastisement, collide in Zanzibari ­children’s bodies. As discussed in chapter 2, adabu and adhabu—­ discipline/manners and punishment—­ frequently overlap and intersect, as do the concepts of adabu mbadala and adhabu mbadala (alternative discipline and alternative punishment). Whereas the former concept originates in the international child protection sphere, the latter represents what this concept means in practice. The rejection of a program that ambiguously results in both punishment and discipline should not be surprising. Differentiations between the two become blurred when supposedly positive forms of child-­rearing replace unacceptable forms of punishment with other punishments that may be equally harmful or negatively affect c ­ hildren. The difficulty of trying to completely replace one

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system of discipline with another becomes clear when reflected against the deeper meanings of adabu and adhabu and in relation to personhood, as explored in previous chapters. Only a few interlocutors agreed that it was pos­si­ble to fully replace adhabu with adabu. Given the interchangeability of the ideas, I suggest that ­there is adabu within adhabu. My respondents could not imagine replacing one concept with another. For child protection actors, the challenge is to create policy in a living world that makes pos­si­ble a change in punishment practice in Zanzibar, without requiring the replacement of a moral code of making and becoming a person. Opposition to development approaches that plainly advocate changing social norms makes sense regarding the fluidity between concepts and their meanings connected to the idea of child protection. Although what is considered “protection” f­ avors alternatives to adabu (in terms of discipline), this very adabu (in terms of courtesy/good be­hav­ior) must be in place for ­children to develop ­toward achieving full social personhood (utu). The Zanzibaris’ rejection of Positive Discipline versus its promotion on international levels is most vis­i­ble in relation to the relevance of “pain” to discipline and punishment. Where the Positive Discipline approach condemns hitting and beating as an infliction of harmful pain, many Zanzibaris consider experiencing a physical sensation necessary for c ­ hildren to understand ­mistakes. And so the teachers, despite reframing certain actions as discipline, continued to consider the under­lying negative notion of discipline impor­tant and hence applied them. As a result, the Positive Discipline program came to have l­ittle to do with child rights activists’ initial visions and definitions of the approach. Instead of using positive forms of discipline that promoted violence-­f ree learning environments, Zanzibari teachers ultimately used alternative punishments that had equally negative effects as corporal punishment.

Adabu Mbadala as Alternative Harm Instead of condemning current child protection activities, many interlocutors stressed that a discussion about protection in schools should not focus on ­whether teachers continued to use the cane, but rather on how they w ­ ere using it, ­because replacing corporal punishment with alternative forms of discipline (adabu mbadala) was considered unthinkable. ­There ­were neither widely accepted appropriate alternatives, able to carry the same meaning and to have the same effect as establishing adabu through adhabu, nor a sufficient ­legal framework to demand a change in p ­ eople’s be­hav­ior. In Zanzibari schools, much like in mainland Tanzania, most teachers supported the continuation of physical chastisement but believed in moderation (Feinstein and Mwahombela 2010, 405). Regulating the practice of caning more strictly has come to be seen as the only acceptable option for change. Even though alternative forms of discipline ­were partially introduced in schools, physical chastisement has remained a frequently



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used disciplinary tool, echoing a sheikh’s statement from the Mufti’s Office that “adabu mbadala is good, if it is agreed on (itakubalika) by every­body in society.” In Zanzibar, this state has not yet been reached. Rather than making Zanzibari schools safer for c ­ hildren, the Positive Discipline program created a parallel system of discipline that endangered ­children and rendered them vulnerable in other ways despite the well-­intentioned agenda of the program. The intended protective mechanisms, such as having to buy brooms instead of being caned, complicated students’ lives. They restricted ­children’s agency to deal with their own ­mistakes by involving their wider ­family networks in providing compensation for the students’ misbehavior, which they had previously dealt with in­de­pen­dently. Positive Discipline turned into a “buzzword” and became a “fuzzword” (Cornwall 2007) that, b ­ ecause it was not aligned with the Zanzibar context, did not use the appropriate tools and so did not achieve the envisioned change. Its content might satisfy donor organ­izations that promote universalized approaches, but was insufficient for students, teachers, and parents, who had to deal with the discipline methods and their consequences ­every day. Teachers largely applied adabu mbadala ­because they ­were ordered to do so by the ministry, even though they considered it a burden and felt they lacked the skills to implement it “correctly” and to “cope effectively with difficult situations without resorting to vio­ lence” (Khoury-­Kassabri and Ben-­Harush 2012, 273). Its practical mistranslation and misapplication in Zanzibari schools suggests the need to reconsider ­whether teacher training in alternative discipline techniques provided at universities or teacher training colleges meets Zanzibari teachers’ classroom management skills and needs (Hassan and Bali 2013, 11).

Conclusion This chapter’s focus on students’ and teachers’ perspectives of Positive Discipline in Zanzibari schools made vis­i­ble the incoherence and tensions inherent in the implementation of this child protection concept, specifically in relation to the overlaps between adabu and adhabu. Demonstrating teachers’ misappropriations of the approach and ­children’s objections ­toward them illustrated the negative side effects that child protection interventions have in Zanzibar. This underlined the tensions ­children face as targets of interventions that theoretically aim to protect them but practically fail to do so. It put into perspective both students’ and teachers’ continued support for corporal punishment, as a form of chastisement less difficult to deal with than alternatives like financial compensation that cause less vis­i­ble but equally complicated harm to c ­ hildren. I A M NOT SUGGESTING TH AT

choosing between being hit or paying money is a

good choice. However, physical chastisement allows students to deal with their

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­mistakes in school on their own, in­de­pen­dently, without having to ask their families for money. This study has emphasized the importance of c ­ hildren as social actors and their roles as much more than passive victims of chastisement. I believe it is impor­tant to trust them when they say they would rather be hit than pay money, b ­ ecause by making this choice they are able to control certain parts of their lives and prevent their agency from being l­imited by protection interventions that unintentionally do so. Although it would go too far to suggest that corporal punishment is a ­f ree and informed choice for ­children, its effects may be less damaging than ­those alternatives to it. ­These findings also show that protection from singular risks like physical chastisement can deprive c ­ hildren of opportunities for well-­being in other areas, if forms of Positive Discipline complicate rather than improve their abilities to deal with issues they face at school. Zanzibari c ­ hildren and adults continue to approve of using physical punishment to achieve moral ends. It is understood as a way of encouraging c ­ hildren to fulfill their societal responsibilities, display re­spect ­toward their parents, and become moral Muslim adults. Positive Discipline programs that suggest an alternative to the disciplinary system that operates in schools and society also suggest a non-­Muslim system of morality (Bourdillon and Myers 2012a, 444f), that for reasons of religiosity cannot be accepted. This chapter also showed that one reason why adults continue to hit c ­ hildren and reject interventions against it is that ­there are no other means of discipline that are effective enough to let them stop using physical punishment. Neither comprehensive trainings on alternative disciplinary methods nor sufficient l­ egal agreements that would contribute to the elimination of caning w ­ ere in place during the time of my fieldwork. Most fundamentally, poverty affects this situation. Protection approaches should recognize ­children’s need to be safe not just from corporal punishment in schools but also on a broader level from vari­ous harms in their communities—­ poverty and vio­ lence being the structural ­factors they identified as most pressing. What Nancy Scheper-­Hughes described as “an average expectable environment of child death, meaning a set of conditions that place infants at high risk, accompanied by a normalization of this state of affairs in both the private and public life” (1992, 20), applies to the continuing use of corporal punishment in Zanzibari schools that is conditioned by prevailing poverty and routinizes structural vio­lence. Poor school infrastructure and extremely large class sizes complicate the noncontextualized application of Positive Discipline approaches designed for “Western”-­ sized, well-­equipped classrooms. Teachers ultimately have no options but to resort to physical chastisement to keep c ­ hildren in order. Basic protection, ­whether for ­children or adults, should recognize and attend to h ­ azards in the environment and acknowledge that poverty remains the greatest of t­ hese threats (Bourdillon 2014, 499). Even though corporal punishment certainly compromises



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­children’s well-­being, it can no longer be considered the most pressing protection ­factor in Zanzibar. In the next chapter, I consider the roles that religion and gender play in the Zanzibari child protection situation, how discourses of protection and chastisement intersect with notions of Islam and sexuality, and how international development approaches have responded to improve young ­people’s well-­being.

5 Gender, Islam, and Child Protection

I am at one of Stone Town’s many small bookshops that largely seem to specialize in selling beautiful Qur’ans, Islamic life guides, Islamic medical books, and a wide variety of guidebooks on how “good” Muslim ­women, wives, and ­mothers ­ought to be. Curious, I request a se­lection of ­those guidebooks to view from the shop attendant. Looking at the covers, I notice that all the books are written by male authors and ask if he also has some written by female writers. He looks at me slightly startled and laughs, saying, “No, I d ­ on’t have any written by w ­ omen. But t­ hese are good! I am sure you know that we highly re­spect ­women (tunawaheshimu wan­ awake) in our religion, but t­ hese books need to be written by men. W ­ omen don’t understand enough ­ ­ because they d ­ on’t study.” (February  2015, Stone Town)

Everyday life in Zanzibar is influenced by ideologies of normative sexuality and gender (Stiles and Thompson 2015, 2). ­These ideologies also define practices of child protection and chastisement. B ­ ecause of t­ hese gender notions, experiencing abuse, speaking about it, and being a young citizen may compromise one’s safety (Abu-­Lughod 2002). Considering the broader conditions required for concepts like participation to be protective—­ when often silence is the “safer” option—­allows us to further reassess protection attempts to abolish caning. My exploration begins with discipline as a threat to c ­ hildren’s well-­being inside the classroom and extends to consider related h ­ azards that Zanzibari c ­ hildren face in everyday life, such as sexual abuse that is witnessed but silenced. Widening my focus on corporal punishment in the school space to include a consideration of sexual abuse helps place disciplinary practices at school in the context of related practices in society at large.

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Zanzibar’s gendered protection real­ity is specifically defined by the higher prevalence of sexual abuse for boys than girls and the asymmetric protection response to this fact: whereas boys tend to be disregarded by child protection programs, girls are often overprotected. To understand the imbalance between the prevalence of vio­lence cases and responses to that abuse, I explore Zanzibari Islamic norms that depict corporal punishment as a gendered practice. ­Children’s and adults’ masculine and feminine roles are socially constructed and assigned as “a kind of a ­doing” in relation to ­others (Butler 2004, 1), which contributes to the gender gap in c ­ hildren’s vio­lence and protection experiences. Considering the link between feminism and Islam (Mahmood 2001), I interrogate existing ideas about men and ­women through the lens of the rights of ­children and ­women, whose needs are distinct but who historically share “a common experience of marginalization” (Todres 2017, 21). Considering prevailing norms of vio­lence against ­women and boys’ physical abuse reveals how the silence around t­ hese societal taboos links into complex protection issues. Zanzibari child protection programs that aim to ban excessive caning or sexual abuse also need to address gender-­based vio­lence and general gender norms around acceptable be­hav­ior by and ­toward men and w ­ omen. B ­ ecause corporal punishment is “a gendered practice and inseparable from issues concerning gendered institutional identities” (Humphreys 2008, 538), Zanzibari-­Muslim imaginaries of femininity and masculinity have an impact on c ­ hildren’s protection and chastisement.

Gendering Protection Practice: Shielding Girls, Neglecting Boys? In Zanzibar, child protection practice and c ­ hildren’s experiences of it are characterized by a gender imbalance. Whereas girls are perceived as sufficiently protected or even overprotected by child protection activists, abuse cases of boys slip through the net, and their equal, or potentially even greater, need for protection is neglected. Although UNICEF’s (2011) survey on Vio­lence against ­Children (VAC) in Tanzania identified corporal punishment as the most common form of abuse that both male and female ­children experience on an everyday basis,1 it also found that Zanzibari boys reported higher levels of sexual vio­lence than girls: one in ten boys versus one in twenty girls reported experiencing sexual vio­lence during childhood (107). During the teenage years, incidences of abuse among females gradually increased, but still remained lower than among boys: “among 13 to 17 year olds, 2.3% of females and 3.7% of males reported that they had experienced at least one form of sexual vio­lence in the past year” (93). Accordingly, the number of male adolescents (seven in ten) experiencing physical vio­lence prior to the age of eigh­teen was higher than that of female young persons (six in ten) (107). Despite ­these findings, staff at the Child

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Protection Unit stressed that most cases are reported by w ­ omen and girls. Instead of this undermining UNICEF’s findings, it suggests both a common perception of protection m ­ atters as relevant to girls only and a silencing of abuse of male ­children. Warner argues that the emotion of “shame” accompanying being a victim of child abuse is a major reason for nonreporting: it is “not only personally and subjectively felt” but also is “generated and experienced collectively” (2015, 1). Placing c ­ hildren’s corporal punishment in the context of vio­lence committed in the home and elsewhere abuses shows that ­these forms of mistreatment are linked. As part of classwork in the course I taught at Zanzibar University, I asked my students to identify ­those articles of the CRC they felt ­were least realized in Zanzibar and to place them in order from least to most realized. This ranking indicated the connection between vio­lence in the home and in the school: “Art. 19—­harsh punishment, Art. 34—­sexual abuse, Art. 28—­primary education, (no article)—­early marriage, Art. 13—­freedom of expression, Art. 9—­​ poverty.” The university students considered punishment and sexual abuse as connected, central, and insufficiently resolved issues in society, highlighting the link between physical chastisement and sexual vio­lence. By identifying the lack of freedom of expression as not being realized in Zanzibar, they emphasized the difficulty of speaking out about certain acts, particularly for ­children. In a context where other forms of abuse may demand more forceful action, this highlights the relevance of ­children’s caning in schools as a pressing priority.

“Child Protection Is for Girls”: W ­ omen’s Rights Discourse and Girls’ Protection In August 2014, I attended a Save the C ­ hildren child rights awareness-­raising workshop for c ­ hildren in the north of Unguja. Most participants arrived late ­because of the vagaries of public transport. When they arrived, I noticed t­ here ­were no boys among them. Inquiring about this, I was told that the village coordinator had de­cided that, due to the delays in transport, only girls should get on the busses: the boys’ participation was not considered as impor­tant, ­because child rights and child abuse w ­ ere largely considered to be girls’ issues. This is a common perception in Zanzibar. As ­Virginia Morrow and Renu Singh claim, understandings of and responses to vio­lence against girls are influenced by ­women’s rights activism much more than by attention to ­children’s rights—­“boys (and men) are simply understood as perpetrators of vio­lence, not potential victims” (2014: 18). This opposes UNICEF’s (2011) findings of a higher prevalence of boys’ sexual abuse. During the time of research, girls remained the main target group considered in need of protection as reflected in the prioritization of their involvement in the workshop. This fostered an exclusive image of child protection as a ­women’s rights approach, instead of one of ­human rights. ­Children’s rights and ­women’s rights are linked (Todres 2017, 21). In Zanzibar, this linkage is expressed through ­children’s and ­women’s shared status of



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relative powerlessness in relation to ­others and both being victims of vio­lence, albeit in dif­fer­ent ways. Even though “the relationship between w ­ omen and ­children and their rights is relatively neglected” (Freeman 2011, 3), it is relevant to considering both “­women” and “­children” as separable groups being assigned specific rights within the larger ­human rights context. It is impor­tant to conceptualize ­children’s rights together with ­human rights more generally and in specific relation to how marginalized groups, like homosexual ­people, are regarded (Quennerstedt 2010, 630). Rights are not simply realized from existing entitlements and protections, but need to be continually fought for; this has been the case for c ­ hildren’s and ­women’s rights around the world (Freeman 2011, 9). A local child rights actor identified the inherent tension in the implementation of rights agendas for marginalized groups in Zanzibar, which is intertwined with implications of gender: “Child rights has the same effect as w ­ omen’s rights. P ­ eople feel that talking of ­children’s rights means that ­children can do what­ever they want. The same when we talk of ­women’s rights—­men think w ­ omen can now do what­ever they want. They think it just means freedom.” Activism for ­children’s rights and activism for feminism make parallel demands to regard ­children as social actors, to extend their identity to full rights-­bearing citizens (Hart 2008), and to improve their position in society (Alanen 1992; Mayall 2002). “­There is more protection for girls than for boys,” a local child protection worker explained, elaborating that “boys can loiter around and play everywhere. But if a girl goes missing for ten seconds—­‘Where is this person?!’ Boys can stay out even ­after the bell at 6.30

P.M.,

no one cares. Some ­people even say they put

boys at risk ­because no one follows up. Boys are just assumed to be strong and girls are immediately sheltered.” Girls receive a greater amount of attention in daily life in Zanzibar and are perceived as “naturally” calmer and more obedient than boys. A sheikh at the Mufti’s Office claimed, “Usually girls are good ­children, not like boys. Boys stay with t­ hese groups and get all t­ hese ­things (mambo mengi), but girls d ­ on’t mingle with them; that’s why they are quieter/ more restrained” (mtulivu). Conceptualizing male and female c ­hildren by reproducing cultural ste­ reo­ t ypes of desired “male” and “female” be­ hav­ ior heightens the perceptions that girls need more protection ­because of their greater vulnerability. In April 2014, I discussed with a group of ­Children’s Council members the changes they wanted to see and the hopes they had for the ­f uture regarding child protection in Zanzibar. Boys asked for “chaperones that escort girls to meetings, to build schools with fences to monitor c ­ hildren ­going in and out, not having toilets built far away from schools as abuse often occurs ­there, and to completely ban the cane from schools.” Girls hoped for “proper prosecution of rapists as they are usually sent to the police for too short, stopping bribes which are often accepted to keep cases ­silent, punishing t­ hose who bribe and receive bribes, not

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having ­children walk alone, and that parents make sure their ­children dress properly so their clothes d ­ on’t provoke abuse.”2 The boys’ responses directly identified girls as needing more effective child protection, addressing only how the protection situation needed to change for girls, but not including themselves as in need. The girls’ answers reflected the lack of social infrastructure in dealing with abuse cases, their insufficient trust in existing structures of authority, and, most importantly, the locus of blame for situations of abuse being girls or ­women who are considered to dress inappropriately.

Neglecting the Physical Abuse of Boys Boys’ protection needs remain overlooked, as an international child protection activist explained: “Most child abuse in Zanzibar is gender-­based vio­lence. T ­ here is no distinction between the two of them. This is typical for countries with a violent background, like Cambodia, South Africa, Vietnam. . . . Most of our perpetrators are ­under the age of eigh­teen. Not girls abuse girls. Boys do this. And why are they d ­ oing this? B ­ ecause most of them w ­ ere sexually abused themselves by a relative.” Just as feminism is about both ­women and men, so gender-­based vio­lence is not only applicable to ­women. Through ­women’s rights laws, direct benefits for girls and indirect benefits for all c ­ hildren can be secured (Todres 2017, 21f). Nevertheless, overemphasizing w ­ omen and ­children as one generalized constituency indirectly neglects the fact that ­children live gendered lives and boys are also at risk of sexual abuse. For one international child protection professional, the heightened abuse of Zanzibari boys resonates with her experience working in child protection in the M ­ iddle East (see chapter 1): Zanzibar is dif­fer­ent to many countries in East or Southern Africa. My experience from this region ­doesn’t help me ­here. It’s rather my experience from the ­M iddle East and countries like Af­ghan­i­stan, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. T ­ here are specific forms of abuse in t­ hese regions. In West Africa, it would be trafficking and child ­labor. In Zanzibar, it would be within the f­ amily—­incestuous relationships—­which is often not even considered child abuse. This is the same in ­Middle Eastern and Arab countries but would not be the case in ­Kenya or Tanzania mainland, Uganda, Zimbabwe, or Zambia where sexual relations with an older male relative would not be regarded normal. The w ­ hole ­thing of abuse of boys is very specific for Zanzibar. Without the knowledge to understand that this is not the norm, ­whether with a girl or a boy, you ­wouldn’t raise such an experience ­because it becomes a revenge and you can be ostracized and stigmatized in this culture. Exactly as in the M ­ iddle East.

This link between Zanzibar and ­Middle Eastern countries emphasizes the need to culturally and historically contextualize abuse and protection, as well as interventions that aim to respond to critical situations in this context. Boys’



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and young men’s high visibility and availability in the Zanzibari public sphere contrast with that of girls and young ­women. Zanzibari men enjoy complete freedom of movement, whereas w ­ omen do not (Knappert 1970, 131). Boys are ­f ree to leave the h ­ ouse and roam the streets; unmarried girls must stay indoors and can only leave the ­house when accompanied by ­family members, friends, or a chaperone. Yet boys’ greater public presence pre­sents its own difficulties. “­Those who are destroyed (wanaoharibu) are our boys (watoto wetu wa kiume). They are more vulnerable in society ­because they are always outside. Male ­children are considered as if they ­don’t need protection (kama hahitaji ulinzi) ­because men are supposed to be strong,” as Bi Khadija, a high-­ranking staff member at the MoESWYWC, emphasized in a meeting with Save the ­Children. “Out of the two ­children shelters in Zanzibar, ­there are none for boys at all. They are only for ­women and girls. Boys d ­ on’t have a place to go,” she added in frustration. Her lament reflects local protection actors’ recognition of the existing gender gap that defines c ­ hildren’s experiences of protection and abuse. It also visualizes how ideas about normative sexuality and gender identity prioritize girls’ protection needs and responses over ­those of boys.

“Men Who Abuse Boys Are Gay”: Stigmatization, Homo­sexuality, and the Sexual Abuse of Boys In Zanzibar, speaking about the abuse of boys is made more complicated by its common equation with homo­sexuality. In Zanzibari Swahili society, as elsewhere, the production of “a normalized and naturalized compulsory heterosexuality” is considered essential for gendering pro­cesses to be considered “successful” (Osella and Osella 2006, 2). In the Islamic tradition, “hadith reports and fiqh decisions stigmatize homosexuals and criminalize their relationship” (Kugle 2010, 2f), and b ­ ecause nearly all Zanzibaris are Muslim, homo­sexuality is publicly frowned on. Discussing the m ­ atter with Nuru, a SUZA lecturer in her forties, she said, Homo­sexuality (ubaradhuli) for men (mabaradhuli) and ­women (wasagaji) was long considered impossible (haiwezekani). The question of sexual intercourse (kuingiliana) of the same sex (ya jinsia moja) is unpop­u­lar. Yes, they always existed, but the topic is not popu­lar, especially not ­doing that to c ­ hildren. Society has let ­children gain more freedom, but now even boys are raped. ­These practices (vitendo) are part of homo­sexuality. ­A fter hearing about ­these ­things through the internet and TV, they want to try it and do that on ­children. In the past, we ­didn’t hear of ­these ­things. ­Children must protect themselves (kujikinga) from ­those homosexual ­people (watu wabaradhuli3).4

Her concern about ­children’s sexual abuse was linked to her disapproval of homo­ sexuality: she portrayed perpetrators as inevitably having a sexual

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preference for the same sex. Yet explaining sexual child abuse cases as part of male homosexual practice distorts real­ity and confines incidents to a realm of double sensitivity by combining two unacceptable scenarios. Although pederasty is the “statistically most prevalent form in Muslim socie­ties” (Murray 1997, 41), “the ­w ill not to know” (14) about male homo­sexuality in places like Zanzibar turns it into a common but silenced practice—as reflected in the UNICEF (2011) findings of a higher prevalence of sexual abuse of Zanzibari boys yet lower numbers of officially reported incidents of that practice versus that of girls. That premarital sex and sex outside of wedlock are sinful and hardly available creates “discrete homosexual behaviour,” b ­ ecause “admitting to having been sodomised disturbs social relations and disturbs someone’s reputation” (Murray 1997, 17). A 2010 Guardian article by Shaista Gohir titled “The Hy­poc­r isy of Child Abuse in Many Muslim Countries,” discussed this issue with reference to men who forced boys into sexual slavery and prostitution in Af­ghan­i­stan. Echoing Foucault’s ([1977] 1991) claim that the body is a primary focus of power relations, Gohir called this practice a “moral hy­poc­risy” in a country “where homo­sexuality is not only strictly forbidden but savagely punished, even between two consenting adults. However, men who sodomise young boys are not considered homosexuals or paedophiles.” Gohir placed the blame for this hy­poc­r isy on gender apartheid and the repression of sexuality in countries of the M ­ iddle East, such as Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Gohir criticized what he called a “false adherence to Islamic princi­ples”—­when, for example, child marriage is justified b ­ ecause of the Prophet Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha—­which aligns with my argument that a “too-­passive attitude in dealing with child abuse” in Muslim communities may therefore force “­children to suffer in silence.” In Zanzibar, Islam is the framework for defining acceptable (sexual) practices, which Zanzibari ­children, particularly boys, must navigate when deciding ­whether to report incidents of sexual abuse. The equation of male sexual abuse with homo­sexuality and its rejection by Islam reduce the likeliness of boys to report incidents.5 Where girls who are sodomized must deal with the bound­aries that religion creates to report such abuses, boys must face a double stigma of their abuse being considered as both homo­sexuality and anti-­Islamic. Hence, boys and men may not report cases of sexual vio­lence, b ­ ecause the possibility that such practices occur does not even exist in some p ­ eople’s minds. The fact that the majority of child protection officers in local government and development structures are w ­ omen further contributes to decreasing the likeliness of men or boys reporting. Unsurprisingly an official responsible for the madrasa system at the Mufti’s Office told me that “­there is a lot of abuse (udhalilishaji) of girl c ­ hildren. Cases of them being sodomized (kuingiliwa kinyume cha maumbile). For boys I only know of one case, at least at madrasa.”



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This low incidence of reports flies in the face of the real­ity of abuse, as an aid worker explained, The Vio­lence Against ­Children (VAC) survey’s surprising result in terms of the higher levels of reported prevalence of sexual vio­lence of boys goes against all regional patterns and global trends. The number of reported cases is still overwhelmingly female. So, t­here are questions around females reporting, comfort, the integrity of statistics. Does that mean that boys ­w ill never report to national ser­v ices?

Not only silently witnessing but also dealing with cases of abuse, especially for boys and men, ­will only be pos­si­ble when the shame is reduced or eliminated. If speaking out about violent experiences is stigmatized through gender imaginaries, such as what may be considered “feminine” or “weak” and hence not acceptable for boys or men who are supposed to be “strong” and not vulnerable, male cases of abuse w ­ ill remain silenced. The disparities in how child protection and physical vio­lence apply to and are experienced by Zanzibari boys and girls are closely connected to how corporal punishment itself is gendered. Only by understanding gender and religious norms that define the appropriate application of physical chastisement is it pos­ si­ble to understand more general conditions that cause other forms of vio­lence and the gender imbalance through which they are experienced. Building on Saba Mahmood’s argument that “par­tic­u­lar systems of gender in­equality enact [vio­ lence] on w ­ omen” (2005, 188), I propose that they may also, as in Zanzibar, enact vio­lence on men. Such forms of vio­lence are fostered in both everyday practices like physical chastisement and less “ordinary” maltreatment like sexual abuse and are conditioned by gender in­equality in society. In socie­ties that are largely built on male imaginaries of what ­women o ­ ught to be, not only ­women’s interests w ­ ill be neglected and suppressed but also t­ hose of c ­ hildren. In Zanzibar, this specifically applies to boys’ needs, which remain largely unaddressed.

Islam, Gender, and Chastisement in Muslim Zanzibar To imagine how approaches to child protection against physical vio­lence can be reenvisioned in Zanzibar, we must consider how corporal punishment is depicted as a gendered practice through Islam. Islam as the most power­f ul defining force in the archipelago provides a critical context for understanding gender relations in connection to child-­rearing. In Zanzibar, chastisement is assigned the productive purpose of forming a person. Chastisement of ­children and ­women is therefore commonly conceptualized as care and guidance instead of vio­lence, b ­ ecause it is considered to create moral Muslim p ­ eople. Although social personhood is the aim of this formation pro­cess and “attributes associated to humanity (utu)

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are not gendered” (Larsen 2008, 109), corporal punishment itself is defined by gender. That is why “research on child abuse and neglect cannot be divorced from the position of ­women” (Montgomery 2015, 18): just as vio­lence against ­children links to vio­lence against ­women and their roles in society, the social acceptability of physical chastisement is a form of discipline inevitably intertwined with other forms of gender-­based vio­lence against w ­ omen and boys.

Zanzibari-­Islamic Perspectives: The (Religious) Discipline of Disciplining In Zanzibar, ­there is no unifying stance on the acceptability of physical chastisement. However, ­there is a tendency to depict light caning as a nonviolent and acceptable form of discipline and to explain this use of the cane often in reference to religion. In my interviews with teachers, local professionals, and parents, I was frequently referred to the Qur’an, the hadith, and to a set of regulations regarding the use of the cane published by the MoEVT, The Concept of the Dis­ cipline of the Cane for Students in Islam.6 Sheikh Mubarak, the author of the set of regulations and one of the central religious authorities involved in establishing the Zanzibari child protection system in collaboration with Save the ­Children, explained that in the Qur’an (Sura ya An’Nisa 4, aya 34) “punishment is only mentioned for adults, or more specifically for w ­ omen, but this can be equally applied to c ­ hildren.”7 For further reference and more precise commands, religious authorities pointed me to the description in the hadith of the appropriate administration of punishment to c ­ hildren (Sunan Abi Dawud, Book of Prayer, Hadith 495). In ­there, as also cited in a Swahili guidebook, Teachings of Islam about Childrearing (Mafunzo ya Kiislam Kuhusu Malezi ya Watoto), parents are advised, “Command your c ­ hildren to pray from the age of seven” (waamrisheni watoto wenu kuswali wakiwa na umri wa miaka saba) “and hit them should they avoid prayer from the age of ten” (na wapigeni wakizembea kuswali wakiwa na umri wa miaka ­ fter makkumi) (Mswagala 2014, 30). When correcting (kumrekebisha) a child a ing a m ­ istake (anapokosea), the “parent should not immediately hit, but . . . ​first explain to them their ­mistake ­gently”8; indeed, many of my young in­for­mants’ accounts expressed the importance of first warning ­children and explaining to them that their be­hav­ior is not considered appropriate. However, the guidebook’s explanation of the hadith proceeds: “If the child is resistant/shows ‘chronic’ be­hav­ior” (atakuwa sugu) and “all t­ hese ways do not work/are not sufficient, the parent s­ hall use the stick to hit like a teacher”9 (28). Another sheikh at the Mufti’s Office emphasized the importance of caning in this context b ­ ecause of the effect the correction of ­children’s “bad be­hav­ior” has of formation of their personhood: “From seven years you teach them about religion, and when they are ten, they may be disciplined (kutiwa adabu), hit (kupigwa), but not to break their bones (kumvunja mifupa). Adabu is discipline and helps them become a good per­ hildren are taught in their families, and madrasa and schoolson (mtu mzuri). C teachers help to raise them.”



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According to Sheikh Mubarak, the prescriptions of the hadith ­were the most common justification for adhabu and are usually taken literally by both parents and teachers. Yet he felt that excessive and violent chastisement represented “a misinterpretation” of the ­actual purpose of adabu. ­There is an order (taratibu) to the proper chastisement of ­children, as a local employee at the CPU explained, To discipline a child, you start by telling them: “This is not good, it’s a bad manner, you have to change.” If the child does not listen, you take the stick and tell them “I w ­ ill smack you if you do it again!” So first you talk; then you correct them (unamrekebisha). Correcting them is necessary (inafaa). It is not punishment (adhabu), but discipline (adabu). You ­don’t hit them without telling (kimya kimya, lit. silently silently). You give them a warning (onyo) so they w ­ ill remember. If they d ­ on’t change, you can hit them, and they ­will understand (ataelewa). They w ­ ill know that you h ­ aven’t abused them (hajanionea), b ­ ecause you already explained to them, and they ­didn’t change. This is how you correct them (kumrekebisha). If you discipline you build a relationship (unajenga uhusiano). Disciplining is not punishing (kuadabisha siyo kuadhibu). Discipline has its order/procedures (taratibu yake). If you punish, it destroys (inabomoa) your relationship with the child.

My interlocutors repeatedly described the procedures adults need to adhere to, rather than resorting to the immediate use of the cane as a means of discipline: for example, “Only if you have tried every­thing like being polite and disciplining them, then you can shift to another stage.” The head teacher at Kisamaki Primary School agreed that, even though hitting is allowed for religious p ­ eople, it must always follow certain procedures, and only if no other way is left may “it be the final solution (suluhisho la mwisho), but without bringing harm” (madhara). Thus, corporal punishment is an accepted conflict-­resolution mechanism in schools, whereby c ­ hildren pay compensation for their wrongdoing by enduring physical chastisement, thereby reestablishing their position within the system. Paying retribution for misbehavior through adhabu reestablished adabu. My interviewees related the use of the cane to the child’s age but differed on which ages ­were most appropriate for which punishments. All agreed that age, particularly the child’s level of emotional development, influenced correctability: “to be corrected by force, the child must be a ‘correctable child’ ” (McGillivray 1997, 219). Bi Muna identified the appropriate age to discipline ­children as “the moment when they reach adolescence (kubaleghe) between the ages of nine ­ hildren and fifteen. It is the border (mstari) for decreasing hitting as by then c already know/understand themselves (wanajifahamu). Between five and thirteen their be­hav­ior is difficult (tabia ni vigumu), which is why they are hit most during t­ hese years.” In contrast, Bi Zacharia, a young teacher, claimed that “from

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age five or six you ­don’t hit ­children anymore; you only correct them with words.” A local child rights professional told me that “the size of the stick accords to the age and increases with age and naughtiness. When ­children are two years old you start with a njukuti (which is like the chelewa)—­very small sticks—to threaten the child while making sure they are not hurt much. As they get older the stick gets longer, bigger, and thicker.” Just as Otto Raum observed in mainland Tanzania that chastisement was “a well-­thought-­out pedagogics of punishment” (1940, 228), so in Zanzibar punitive practices ­were said to be adapted to the ­children’s age. Punishment was also influenced by the child’s gender. A local MoEVT employee specified that “­children should be hit on the buttocks (makalio) or on the hands (mikononi), but girls (mtoto wa kike) should usually be hit on the hands,” pointing out the parts of a female child’s body considered appropriate for chastisement. Twelve-­year-­old Faiza’s viewpoint on appropriate discipline indicated its gender and age gradations: Before ­children are six years old you cannot hit them. They need to understand why they are hit (anapigwa). You c ­ ouldn’t hit a small child like my ­sister, who is only two years. According to the law it ­shouldn’t be more than ten strokes, or ­until the child says, “Forgive me, I ­won’t do it again.” Older c ­ hildren are punished (wanaadhibiwa) more than younger ones, ­because they get hurt quicker. Girls are hit very ­little, maybe one stroke, but boys two to three strokes, ­because they listen less than girls.

This gendered explanation was echoed by a local child protection officer, who told me that “boys are beaten more than girls ­because of their higher level of activity and temperament. From puberty on they are hit more strongly and frequently at school.” Although many religious authorities supported using the cane based on the precepts of Islam, o ­ thers advocated that limits should be placed on physical punishment. Excessive chastisement was usually deemed unacceptable, b ­ ecause it did not adhere to religiously prescribed procedures (taratibu). Let us return to Sheikh Mubarak’s guide, The Concept of the Discipline of the Cane for Students in Islam, which includes religious understandings in support of protecting ­children and limiting the use of the cane: Caning as a disciplinary form (adabu ya bakora) makes a student or a child build hostility (kujenga uhasama) and enmity (uadui) ­towards their parent or elder. Therefore, this disciplinary mea­sure (adabu hiyo) may remove the love/friendship between them and their teachers and affect their relationship. Hence, Islam does not provide the opportunity (haukutoa nafasi) for caning as a form of discipline (kutumika adabu ya bakora). Islam raises ­children from childhood (hali ya udogo) up to adulthood (utu-­uzima)



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providing them with all fundamental rights (haki za msingi) like health, education and parental love.

The document concludes with a recommendation to limit physical discipline, stating that “hitting (kupiga) as a form of disciplining a student before teaching them (kabla ya kumfunza) does not exist in Islam” and that “it is better to find alternative forms of discipline (adabu mbadala) which ­w ill make the student understand and learn.” It emphasizes the importance of adult–­child relationships f­ ree of fear that build on teaching and understanding and prioritize explanation before resorting to hitting. Yet that option still remains. Of course, Sheikh Mubarak’s view, which was promulgated by the MoEVT and received much attention in child protection policy and practitioner circles, only partially represents Zanzibari Islam and was frequently contested. The response to one of his anti-­caning speeches at a Save the C ­ hildren Positive Discipline workshop for teachers was clearly one of opposition to his view. ­A fter repeating his document’s central points—­that the cane c ­ auses hostility (bakora inaleta uadui) and that parent–­child relationships should not be destroyed through beating—he then went on to say that the cane (bakora) is an improper tool to teach with (hafahamishi vizuri). He called on teachers to use more acceptable ways of teaching (njia ya makubaliano) that would not contest religious morality (maadili ya dini), and he encouraged religious leaders to give educational ­ eople’s be­hav­ior (tabia ibadilike). A ­ fter the speeches (mawaidha) to help change p sheikh finished his speech, the school’s assistant headteacher got up from his chair and made plain his disagreement with it: “That the cane is not t­ here in religion is not true. It is t­ here. Not to cause pain (maumivu), but to be applied according to its procedures” (taratibu yake). It seemed as if the schoolteacher understood Sheikh Mubarak’s strong position against caning as a form of denial, if not blasphemy, or at least as an unacceptable interpretation of Islam. For the teacher, physical discipline as such could not be contested, b ­ ecause it was described in the Qur’an and the hadith. Only the procedures or technique of hitting could be questioned, not the practice itself. Another official at the Mufti’s Office told me that “God alone can punish (kuadhibu). ­People can only chastise/discipline (kuadabisha) or teach someone. ­Others use the cane; some take away the child’s food (wanamnyima chakula). Every­body has their own way” (namna yake). As ­these variegated accounts show, ­there is no unified Muslim stance on caning, but only individual positions and general tendencies that, considering the sources they refer to, all become their own translations.

Of Hitting W ­ omen and Hitting C ­ hildren “Where in the Qur’an can I read about the use of the cane?” I ask Sheikh Mubarak and place the beautifully decorated Qur’an he gave me as a

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pre­sent on the t­able in his office at the MoEVT. He points at sura 4, verses 34–35—­“You have to look at the sura that explains how to treat your wife. This you can also apply to ­children.” He recounts the procedures that apply before turning to physical correction: first warn her, then let her sleep alone, and only at last, resort to hitting her, but do not cause her pain (usimpe maumivu), as the Prophet (saw) has forbidden (akakataza) pain. I ask him, “Even though this sura speaks of hitting ­women, the procedures also apply to c ­ hildren? Does that mean that ­women and c ­ hildren are considered as the same?” “No”, he responds, “­women and ­children are not the same. A child c ­ an’t decide (kuamua) for themselves, but a ­woman can. In our culture (utamaduni), it is necessary to hit c ­ hildren—­spare the rod and spoil the child.” (March  2015, Stone Town)

Even though Sheikh Mubarak described dif­fer­ent ways to discipline w ­ omen and ­children, he cited the Qur’anic guidelines for husbands to chastise their wives as also applicable to the chastisement of c ­ hildren. This suggests his partial equation of w ­ omen and ­children, at least according to status, and how they ­ought to be formed and guided in society. Mubarak’s regulations in The Concept of the Discipline of the Cane for Students in Islam claim that hitting is not prescribed in Islamic child-­rearing and that its practice appears in connection to the treatment of w ­ omen or, more specifically, of wives: In the Qur’an being hit with a cane (kupigwa bakora) appears regarding a wife’s disobedience ­towards her husband (mke aliyemuasi kwa mumewe). “Men are the guardians (wasimamizi) of the w ­ omen to be sponsored (kufadhiliwa) by God and to manage their wealth (mali yao).” It is testified: “Righ­teous ­women are devoutly obedient (wenye kutii) and guard themselves in the husband’s absence (wanaojilinda) as Allah has commanded them to. As to ­those w ­ omen on whose part you see ill-­conduct, admonish them (first), (next) refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly, if it is useful); but if they obey you, seek not against them means (of annoyance)”10 (Sura ya An’Nisa 4, aya 34). In this verse (aya) the discipline of hitting (adabu ya kupiga) is mentioned but the Prophet (saw) has interpreted (ameifasiri) this disciplinary mea­sure to be a blow (pigo) without harm (lisilo na madhara). The scholars (wanazuoni) said that the stick for hitting ( fimbo ya kupigia) ­shall not exceed the size of a toothbrush (urefu wa msuwaki) so it cannot hurt/injure (hauwezi kuumiza). This is the blow (pigo) that exists in Islamic law.

Sheikh Mubarak’s document pre­sents an Islam that, despite commanding husbands to physically chastise their wives if need be, and parents to do the



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same with their ­children, promotes the need for a moderation of the practice. Islam does not directly prohibit the physical chastisement of w ­ omen and c ­ hildren but moderates and regulates it by urging the cane to be wielded in a “non-­ harmful way” and delaying its use as an option. Also included in the document are the criteria that define a “good ­woman” and enable men to play their roles as w ­ omen’s guardians, which entitles them to correct their wives’ be­hav­ior in case of disobedience and insufficient self-­restraint. Nevertheless, it also stresses that “hitting” (kupiga) must be understood in a “non-­harmful” way. In another Save the C ­ hildren workshop I observed in May 2015, several religious leaders discussed procedures for incorporating Islamic approaches into the Positive Discipline program. Sheikh Mubarak referred t­ here to what he told me previously: In my paper, the cane is not ­there for ­children ( fimbo haipo kwa watoto). I apologize to the w ­ omen (samahani wanawake), but the stick is expected (inatarajiwa) for ­women, but according to its own procedures (ina tara­ tibu yake). This is part of the formation of the ­woman (malezi ya mke) and the man being her guardian (mlezi).

Claiming both the need for the physical chastisement of disobedient ­children according to ­those “guidelines” in place for ­women and that generally c ­ hildren should not be hit reinforces a partial equalization of w ­ omen and ­children as par­tic­u­lar types of p ­ eople. Sheikh Mubarak’s apol­o­getic reference to w ­ omen’s formation, education, or “rearing” was related to religious justifications for a connection between the categories of ­woman and child. Another religious authority at the Mufti’s Office reiterated this connection: “Even though ­women are hit, it is a certain type of hitting (namna ya kupiga). Not to injure them (umwumize), but just to make them know you are angry” (umeka­ sirika). Expressing anger or discontent with ­others’ be­hav­ior by wielding physical force, for the purpose of getting them to change their actions to ­those desired by the inflictor of the chastisement, reflects the notion of disciplining (kuadabisha) we encountered previously. According to t­ hese explanations, both ­women and c ­ hildren must be “formed” through adabu or, as commonly (mis) ­ oman’s tabia (character/behavior) interpreted, through adhabu. Influencing a w and a child’s adabu (manners/courtesy) are the moments where the approaches to physical discipline connect. Many of my female conversation partners agreed that men should serve as guardians of ­women and have the right to discipline them. Bi Nuru, a self-­ described pious ­woman and m ­ other of five, explained, If a w ­ oman ­doesn’t pray, her husband should warn her (amwonye), then make her not sleep in their bed (amhamie kitanda), and fi­nally smack her (amchape) with a toothbrush (mswaki). He should not injure her

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(asimwumize), and he may not hit her in the face, and neither hit in anger (kwa hasira) but instead with calmness (kwa upole). But if you ­really love your wife, you cannot hit her with a big cane (bakora kubwa).

In referring to the Qur’an, Bi Nuru described the same procedures as the religious leaders, but her final sentence emphasized the connection between love and the proper means of discipline. She also did not agree that ­women and ­children should be considered equals: “­Women and c ­ hildren are not the same. A child does not have judgment (hukumu) in religion; a child has no liability (dhima). For a child it is not necessary to follow religious law (Sharia) like fast­ here is a big difference.” ing (kufunga). T Despite the variety of opinions on the connection between gender and chastisement in Islam, e ­ very conversation contained a reference to a man’s use of the cane to correct a ­woman’s be­hav­ior. Many also recognized the connection between how w ­ omen and c ­ hildren o ­ ught to behave and how they o ­ ught to be disciplined so as to correct their potentially deviant be­hav­ior. A situation I encountered with a friend exemplified a male stance on discipline: Sitting in a restaurant with my friend Ruwaida, waiting to order, a drunk ­woman in a mini-­skirt and a T-­shirt without head­scarf, stumbles past our ­table and grabs a beer b ­ ottle from the t­ able next to us. A waiter goes right ­after her, yelling at and insulting her, and rips the ­bottle out of her hands. Losing balance, she falls over but gets back up. Then he slaps her in the face. Now I’m yelling too, at him, grab my friend’s hand, and tell him we ­w ill not eat in a place where w ­ omen are hit. Ruwaida remains s­ ilent in discomfort. The waiter is looking at me both irritated and amused: “But look at her, she is a drunk, and she took their ­bottle. What do you expect me to do?” (April 2015, Zanzibar)

The confidence and self-­righteousness with which the waiter chastised the ­woman suggest that, b ­ ecause she was violating expectations of how “good” ­women o ­ ught to behave, his hitting her was acceptable. His resorting to physical chastisement, as is done with c ­ hildren, seemed to him to be the expected or logical option to restore “order.” The link between appropriately correcting ­women and c ­ hildren again raises the question w ­ hether ­women and c ­ hildren are considered equals in Zanzibar, and more broadly, in Islam. The refusal “to disaggregate w ­ omen and ­children as groups . . . ​continues the association between ­women and ­children as minors in need of protection, which is a necessary correlate of male power” (Ennew 1986, 57). Heather Montgomery’s claim that decreasing societal tolerance for hitting adults also results in decreased tolerance for hitting ­children (2008, 158) holds true in the reverse in Zanzibar, where t­ here is a correlation between vio­lence



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against w ­ omen and vio­lence against c ­ hildren (UNICEF 2007). As long as hitting ­women remains justified and tolerated, so does the physical chastisement of ­children. The close conceptual link between the exposure of child abuse and feminist thinking also calls into question “how closely w ­ omen and c ­ hildren can be linked ideologically” (Montgomery 2001, 156). The multiple views in Zanzibar on this linkage suggest that the position of w ­ omen in Zanzibari society inevitably affects how c ­ hildren are treated too.

Fe/Male Imaginaries in Zanzibar The Islamic norms that depict corporal punishment as a specifically gendered practice also assign par­tic­u­lar roles to men and w ­ omen, which reinforces the gendered gap in how Zanzibari ­children experience protection and punishment. In Islamic socie­ties like Zanzibar, the body plays a crucial role in everyday life; the female body, in par­tic­u­lar, is subject of much attention (Khuri 2001). Bodies are never neutral but are constituted and separated by ideas about masculinity and femininity (Moore 2007). Following the Swahili Coast’s Islamic history, social and cultural distinctions are consistently gendered (Decker 2015: 35). From an early age, male and female bodies are separated both in the public and the private sphere, and boys and girls mainly socialize in single-­sex groups. Such segregation “enculturates and reinforces ideas about sex difference” (Blackwood 2006, 419). Yet men and ­women also constitute the other through this separation: the strict Islamic division into feminine and masculine spaces makes the body a tool to communicate attitudes and values through unspoken language (Khuri 2001). That Zanzibari ­ children are defined as male (ya kiume) or female (ya kike)—­“a discrimination that again makes a difference with re­spect to ­ people’s notions about self-­ control, emotion and reason, illness inflicted through and on the body, and questions of sexuality” (Larsen 2008, 109)—­a lso affects their chastisement and protection. As made clear in the Islamic guidelines for physical punishment, ­women, like ­children, are considered to need guidance and formation, and men hold the guardian roles. Physical chastisement is perceived to be a necessary practice to “raise” c ­ hildren and “guide” w ­ omen, raising questions about the connection between ­children’s and ­women’s rights to protection from harm, the roles of men and boys, and the link between corporal punishment, gender-­based vio­lence, and sexual abuse. Although both boys’ and girls’ bodies are targets of physical discipline, ­there are gender-­specific nuances in the application of the practice and other related forms. Considering Zanzibari ideas about masculinity and femininity helps us understand why girls and boys have dif­fer­ent experiences of protection from everyday h ­ azards that they face differently and why it is pos­si­ ble to speak of sexual vio­lence against girls but not of that against boys.

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­Women in Formation In Zanzibar, the notion of the “good” ­woman was omnipresent, constantly pursued, contested, and in question. “Respectable” w ­ omen would not engage in public dispute or expose private f­amily ­ matters (Decker 2014, 153), but instead cultivate their “shyness, re­spect and passivity” for ­these characteristics are “ideal female features and make for tabia nzuri (good character)” (Beckmann 2015, 119). Booklets and guides like t­hose I was inquiring about in this chapter’s opening vignette, with titles such as Four Signs of a Good W ­ oman or How to Be a Good Muslim ­ ere plentiful in Stone Town’s bookshops. They expounded on moral ideas Wife, w like the fundamental needs for w ­ omen to be good and pious, and to be taught how to act that way, which resonated with discussions of the ethical formation and inculcation of adabu in young ­people to make them become “good Muslim ­children” (see chapters  1 and 2). The booklets aligned with Saba Mahmood’s (2001) exploration of this pro­cess with Muslim ­women, interpreting adab as a disciplinary practice through which ­women’s pious dispositions are cultivated. Mundhir Liongo, the Head of Fatwa and Research at the Mufti’s Office, argued strongly for the relevance and importance of such guidebooks: “A child starts being made/formed (anachungwa) even before the marriage (ndoa), when you have to find a good ­mother (mama mwema). Four types of ­women are suitable for having ­children: beautiful (nzuri kwa sura), wealthy (mwenye mali), or pious (mwenye dini) ­women.” Even though he only mentioned three of the four types of ­women, men are the ones choosing w ­ omen, and not vice versa or together: this suggests a power imbalance directed by men, in which ­women must adhere to standards de­cided by men. I did not find instructions or manuals for how men could attain “good be­hav­ior” or become “good,” which suggests ­those guides are not considered equally necessary. As Nadine Beckmann has pointed out, a Zanzibari ­woman is always “balanced, calm and in control of one’s emotions and actions” (2010, 620f). This ideal image is described in well-­k nown Zanzibari poet Haji Gora Haji’s poem, “Sifa ya Mke” (A Wife’s Praise), in which he elaborates on the expectations for a good wife’s be­hav­ior (1994, 40). Repeatedly stressing that “a wife’s praise is her character/behavior” (tabiya), he also mentions complacency (ukinaifu), shame (haya), obedience (utiifu), sympathy (huruma), being calm (awe mtulivu), and not “one who goes with other men” (asiwe kiruka njiya) as impor­tant traits. As with c ­ hildren where adabu (manners) is key to their moral training, w ­ omen’s be­hav­ ior (tabia) is positioned above other characteristics and resonates with what “good” ­children ­ought to be. Zanzibari ­women and the female body are not only hypervisible but are also conceived of as potentially dangerous. Both local and foreign imaginaries of the ­ woman as “temptress” are projected onto ­ women’s bodies, making



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female sexuality an issue. W ­ omen’s desires and passion for “earthly pleasures” are viewed as stronger than ­those of men, so ­women must therefore “be protected against themselves” and “must obey men” (Knappert 1970, 131). Considering sexuality as encompassing “the social rules, economic structures, po­liti­cal ­battles and religious ideologies that surround physical expressions of intimacy and the relationships within which such intimacy takes place” (Cornwall, Correa, and Jolly 2008, 5), makes female sexuality a sensitive ­matter in Zanzibar.

Men as Guardians ­Women occupy most of the discussion spaces on be­hav­ior and the body, and hence also of how to correct the former through the latter, whereas men remain invisible in t­ hese conversations: men and male be­hav­ior are seldom topics of debate regarding morality or conduct. Rather than being subjects of critique, men are first and foremost considered w ­ omen’s guardians or custodians, ­because Zanzibari ­women’s basic character “is regarded as less emotionally stable and controlled” (Beckmann 2015, 119). “Uwalia, wilaya”11 describes guardianship over ­children, which includes looking a ­ fter their welfare and providing for them, but may equally be applied to ­women as “the care of one who cannot look ­after himself properly, ­because of age, lunacy or illness” (Knappert 1970, 344). When one of my Swahili teachers and I ­were discussing the childhood practice of akika—­the slaughter of two goats at the birth of a boy versus one goat for a girl—he shared his view of the purpose of this earliest distinction between male and female ­children: “Men get more than ­women, ­because we are ­women’s supervisors/disciplinarians (wasimamizi). A w ­ oman’s wealth is managed (inasi­ mamiwa) by her husband.” The leading position that Zanzibari men attribute to themselves in the context of the ­family and marriage has been justified by their being “considered to have more intelligence (akili) than ­women” and so should naturally make all the decisions (Knappert 1970, 131). My teacher’s explanation locates this role ascription as taking place shortly a ­ fter birth. Bi Muna reinforced this conception: For Muslims the final decision maker (muamuzi wa mwisho) is the ­father. He decides about marriage (ndoa), and he is the walii (decision maker). A man is the f­ amily’s guardian (mlezi) and hereditary leader (kiongozi wa kurithi). He builds (anajenga) the ­family and learns his work from his ­father. His responsibilities include procuring food and impor­tant requirements (mahitaji) and he does physical ­labor, i.e. on the field or to build a ­house.

The roles men are assigned in Zanzibari society become even clearer, when I asked her w ­ hether ­women, too, have the right to correct their husband’s be­hav­ ior or to demand divorce:

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Correcting (kurekebisha) men is more difficult. Hitting them is not easy. They are strong. But, for example, if he d ­ oesn’t pray, you complain to his parents. If that d ­ oesn’t help, you go to a religious judge (kadhi), and then you can demand divorce (kudai talaka). In Islam, ­fathers must provide the food, and it’s a m ­ istake according to Sharia law if they fail to do that. Then the w ­ oman can go to a kadhi, and he can demand him to provide. If you ­don’t have the means to provide for a ­family, ­don’t get married—it w ­ ill bring you sin (utapata dhambi).

Islam and its according laws structure p ­ eople’s roles and be­hav­ior, largely in relation to gender, and are cited as proof for the in­equality of ­women and men (Stockreiter 2015). Although “a man may have four wives” and “the wife must obey her husband, especially in sexual ­matters . . . ​the husband owes his wife no obedience” (Knappert 1970, 345). W ­ omen are “encouraged to study the Koran, the Holy tradition, and the law, and some w ­ omen are known to have been scholars and even saints,” but it is also “accepted that men have a better grasp of ­these ­things, and so men have the last word” (131). Another poem by Haji Gora Haji (1994, 12), “Usimpige Mkeo”12 (Do Not Hit/Strike your Wife)—­shares a dif­fer­ent perspective on Zanzibari men’s social roles and on how they ­ought to treat ­women from a vernacular perspective. “A wife is not to be hit with a stick, nei­ ecause “that be­hav­ior is bad”14; men are reminded ther is she to be kicked,”13 b that “­there is no good in striking, live with her peacefully.”15 The poem is a valuable complement to what is prescribed in the Qur’an and propagated by Islamic authorities, ­because it condemns the use of physical force on a wife as much as it disagrees with the impingement of her freedom. A message to married men, it reflects the nuances within interpretations of Islam held by pious p ­ eople in Zanzibar. ­These Zanzibari imaginaries of male and female personhood show how chastisement is rationalized through Islam and according to gender roles. Taking t­ hese roles seriously allows one to see why corporal punishment specifically applies to w ­ omen and c ­ hildren—­because of their perceived stronger need than men for formation and guidance—­and why men occupy the active positions as guardians. It also shows why girls are apparently “overprotected” both in society and through child protection interventions ­because of their supposed naturalized status as vulnerable and in need of protection and guidance—­and why society insufficiently acknowledges boys’ needs for protection too. B ­ ecause boys’ ­imagined gender identities do not accommodate perceived “weaknesses,” they are placed outside a potential spectrum of abuse. Therefore, a reconsideration of child protection interventions in Zanzibar should recognize the defining power of gender imaginaries and their impact on the prevalence of certain forms of abuse in society.



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Reapproaching Child Protection: Connecting Corporal Punishment and Gender-­Based Vio­lence A re­imagined child protection system needs to address the gender imbalance in child protection and child abuse in Zanzibar, from which boys suffer the most, and how chastisement and normalized vio­lence are influenced by Zanzibari Muslim ideas about male and female roles that reinforce boys’ vulnerability to abuse. To address the gender gap in child protection programs that leaves boys’ needs unattended to and excluded from the protection discourse by Zanzibari imaginations of masculinity and femininity, protection interventions must deal more broadly with gender-­based vio­lence. The misleading equation of ­women and ­children, and hence of c ­ hildren with girls, results in the unintentional exclusion of boys and men as both victims and perpetrators—­always as agents—in the vio­lence discourse. Both physical chastisement and sexual abuse constitute unapproved intrusions into another person’s physical real­ity. Separately addressing corporal punishment as a societal ill fails to account for the blurred bound­ aries between this practice and other forms of abuse. The connection between corporal punishment and gender-­based vio­lence leads to the realization that eliminating child abuse is not pos­si­ble without outlawing physical punishment (Freeman and Saunders 2014, 702). “You ­can’t legislate against corporal punishment alone; you have to address the social norm around vio­ lence,” an international child protection actor explained, b ­ ecause “­there is a major link between what’s considered acceptable physical vio­lence for corporal punishment and extreme cases of physical and sexual vio­lence. It always comes down to the idea of what is acceptable.” Corporal punishment is structured around wider social hierarchies of gender. ­Because ­children’s bodies are “the canvases for t­ hese hierarchies” and “sites for the inscription, expression, and enactment of power” (Proctor 2015, 18), how they are ­imagined and what is projected onto them must also be recognized in child protection program planning. Whereas girls’ physical well-­being receives a lot of attention in protection programming, the care given to boys’ bodies and minds is insufficient and should be increased. Failing to engage men and overfocusing on ­women in child protection practices result in overlooking a “substantial dimension of vio­lence in girls’ as well as boys’ lives” (Morrow and Singh 2014, 18). ­Doing so reinforces “gender ste­reo­t ypes of girls (and w ­ omen) as the inevitable victims of male aggression and vio­lence” (18), while boys are not considered as such. Development concepts of child protection and child rights are highly feminized and frequently understood as exclusively relevant to girls, to protecting girlhood, and to dealing with harms that girls face. A development professional with a leading child rights organ­ization lamented the focus on girls’ empowerment that tends to ignore boys:

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­People keep demanding “Girls Clubs.” This is typical for countries with male domination. Bangladesh, Pakistan, e ­ tc., they keep talking about engaging girls. But who do you see out in society—75% are boys. So, who are the c ­ hildren that are abused? The boys! I’m not saying girls are not abused, b ­ ecause they are, but we have to modify how we look at child abuse and engage boys.

­B ecause child socialization and broader social pro­cesses are inextricably interwoven, child protection interventions should take seriously societal gender norms and how they determine ­children’s bodily being and condition their potential sexual abuse. Corporal punishment and gender-­based vio­lence, like sexual abuse, are intimately linked. Interventions that aim to decrease the prevalence of corporal punishment should therefore also address gender specific vio­lence on a more general level. To do this, it is necessary to consider the gendered real­ity around practices other than caning. Given that feminism aims to achieve gender equality and an equal valuation of men and w ­ omen, child protection approaches should be viewed in the light of ­women’s rights. This intersects with the quest to de-­objectify ­children and to recognize them as subjects in their own right. Without falling “into polarizations that place feminism on the side of the West” (Abu-­Lughod 2002, 778), a feminist approach to child protection is needed to improve the rights situations of marginalized groups such as ­women or ­children. Ideas around child protection and feminism are closely intertwined, b ­ ecause if ­women’s positions in society do not improve, neither ­w ill t­ hose of c ­ hildren, and vice versa. Vio­lence against ­women and vio­lence against ­children—­both boys and girls—­are two sides of the same coin. As long as questions of protecting c ­ hildren are sidelined as ­women’s and girls’ issues, they w ­ ill continue to unintentionally exclude some ­children as potential targets and falsely assume a one-­directional occurrence of abusive acts ­toward c ­ hildren. Even though corporal punishment and sexuality have frequently been linked, the use of the cane has more commonly been interpreted “within ‘gender-­neutral’ discourses of culture (including religion) or ­human rights” (Humphreys 2008, 528). As “a statement of power, status, and hierarchy,” physical chastisement is only considered abusive when “applied in an inappropriate context, or by someone who does not have the authority to do so” (Montgomery 2008, 173). The fact that physical punishment has been argued to be particularly prevalent in socie­ties with “a culture of vio­lence” that normalizes wife beating and harsh punishment for criminals (Ember and Ember 2005, 613) links Zanzibari ­children’s chastisement to norms of physically disciplining ­women (Strauss 1983; GIECP 2016). This normalization of corporal punishment trivializes other forms of vio­lence (Humphreys 2008, 537) and the clear differentiation between who chastises—­men—­and who is to be corrected—­women and c ­ hildren—­makes



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recognizing and responding to vio­lence against boys and men particularly difficult. Recognizing the broader gendered conditions that enable speaking about sensitive topics and participation in society without compromising one’s safety, we can see how speaking out instead of being ­silent may become a form of protection too. The stigma connected to the abuse of boys in Zanzibar reflects the taboo of speaking about male experiences of rape and sexual abuse. To make it pos­si­ble for boys and men to report cases of abuse and for protection workers to shift their focus from only serving girls to also helping boys, it is critical to change how young men view their own and young w ­ omen’s societal roles, and how ­women construct their own images and t­ hose of masculinity, by working with both men and w ­ omen, boys and girls, to decrease cases of abuse. Understanding abuse requires understanding power and that the “sexual abuse of c ­ hildren—­a nd some corporal punishment is unquestionably sexual abuse—is largely male abuse of power” (Freeman and Saunders 2014, 695). It is therefore necessary to emphasize men’s vital role in the care for and protection of ­children, so that childcare—­and thus also child protection—­will not exclusively be considered “­women’s work” or target girls only (Naguib 2015; Rutman 1996). This may include uplifting men to the role of responsible partners and parents through “a more nuanced view of men, their relation to sexuality and parenthood as well as interaction with w ­ omen” (Fuglesang 1997, 1252). Working exclusively with girls and w ­ omen to improve their situations has been shown to be counterproductive t­ oward the goal of improving all c ­ hildren’s safety. It separates the responsibility for protection from vio­lence and harm from the men and boys who need to play critical roles in improving w ­ omen’s and girls’ safety. Bi Khadija from the MoESWYWC made this point strongly: We need a focus on ­fathers (akina baba) and young men (wanaume vijana), ­because in Islam they are the guardians (walezi), the representatives (wasi­ mamizi), the leaders (waongozaji) of the f­amily. Unfortunately, they also discard all this. They ­don’t raise the ­children (hawalei); they ­don’t care for them (hawawatunzi). We have many cases where men d ­ on’t take up their responsibility (kutotimiza wajibu). They must be targeted so they ­will be ambassadors (mabalozi) for their fellows.

Prioritizing girls’ needs in child protection programming should not translate into neglecting boys’ requirements for safe environments and men’s responsibilities in contributing to realizing them. It puts boys at risk and reinforces the silencing of boys’ experiences of abuses. Understanding child protection as girls’ protection excludes boys from the discourse and lessens the possibility of imagining the existence of their abuse. This increases the silencing and continuation of violent acts against male c ­ hildren.

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Conclusion In this chapter, I continued the discussion of c ­ hildren’s chastisement, their voice, and participation by considering the impact of gender, religion, and the body on violent realities. By illustrating what I referred to as a “feminization” of child protection, I showed how child protection practices have excluded boys from protection discourses and approaches. I built on Zanzibari notions of gender, Islam, and the body in the public and private spheres and showed how boys’ and girls’ protection are approached unequally. I explored how corporal punishment itself is gendered from a Zanzibari-­Muslim perspective and how more general ideas about the gendered body and social roles of men and ­women are linked to that. By focusing on the physical abuse of boys, the chapter brought to light how this taboo in society, in the context of heightened religiosity, is a pressing protection issue. Child protection is linked to the discourse of w ­ omen’s rights and Islam and raises the issue of the conceptual equation of ­women with ­children as it exists in Zanzibar. The discussion of ­women’s and ­children’s chastisement according to Islam led me to establish the critical link between protecting male and female c ­ hildren and adults and emphasized the need to reduce both physical chastisement and gender-­ based vio­ lence through protection interventions that protect all ­ children. I concluded by acknowledging the impor­tant link between physical chastisement and gender-­based vio­lence that is impor­tant to consider in attempts to decrease e ­ ither form of vio­lence. The current global stance on the absolute need to ban all forms of corporal punishment fails to acknowledge other forms of abuse that ­children experience in Zanzibar, such as both boys’ and girls’ sexual abuse. Additionally, child protection interventions should take into account that in Zanzibar gender and chastisement are constructed differently than in the West and are overwhelmingly built on Islamic norms. This is particularly critical in Muslim contexts such as the archipelago or the Swahili Coast more broadly, where an adherence to certain interpretations of gender notions in the Qur’an may lead to a partial conceptual equation of w ­ omen and ­children. This means looking “beyond vio­lence at the interpersonal level, to vio­lence at the structural level” (Pells 2012, 571) and considering gender specific discrimination that conditions abuse, as is the case for Zanzibari boys. In the next chapter, I view ­these themes on the broadest scale, in the context of global discourses of power, secularization, health, and well-­being.

6 Decolonizing Child Protection

During my fieldwork I held a research affiliation with Zanzibar University (ZU) at Tunguu, where a Diploma in Child Rights Protection had recently been established in collaboration with Save the C ­ hildren. The head of the Institute of Continuing Education (ICE) asked me to teach a seminar on “Child Rights-­Based Approaches.” Before my first day of class, I toured the campus and introduced myself to the other faculty as someone conducting research on corporal punishment and child protection. One lecturer in the Faculty of Law seemed both unimpressed and defensive, telling me, “Well, t­ here is not only one way of protecting c ­ hildren for all countries.” I assured him that I agreed with him, but not seeming to listen to my response, he added, “You [and h ­ ere he only left me to assume whom he might have meant by “us”] do not protect your ­children better than us; you just spoil them.” It was not what the law professor and I said to each other, but rather what we had not said that explained his somewhat hostile remarks. The way in which he openly expressed his rejection of what he thought of as child protection reflects a widespread negative reaction to child-­rights-­ based activities that I encountered in dif­fer­ent forms and places in Zanzibar. Rather than responding to what I said, he seemed to react to his perception of who I represented: a European-­looking ­woman who spoke of child protection could only be interested in finding more ways to prove that “non-­Western” ideas on child-­rearing ­were somehow insufficient. His immediately ­going on the defense—­when I had, in fact, not attacked him—­ was based on a feeling of moral devaluation that he must have felt long before we spoke.

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In this chapter, I consider the larger structures and discourses in which protection practices are viewed and embedded. I ask what the child protection real­ity in Zanzibar, and elsewhere, would need to look like to preempt accusations—­ such as the professor’s—of child protection interventions as neo­co­lo­n ial or “Westernizing” undertakings that cause moral decay. I take seriously local child protection policy makers’ and implementers’ encounters with and perceptions of child protection, focusing on their concerns and reconsidering what may have to change to better suit their needs. Child protection prac­ti­tion­ers’ critical assessments make clear where child rights governance structures fail or may need to be revised. They also reveal concrete directions for change and access points for decolonization that aim to unravel the hegemonic regime that child protection in Zanzibar has become. The child protection apparatus in Zanzibar allocates the authority to protect young ­people to both state and nonstate organ­i zations while paying insufficient attention to vernacular notions of childhood and well-­being. Following this, the interventions evoke opposition, even though t­here is no disagreement with their fundamental aim that ­children should be safe. The chapter draws on Ngugi wa Thiong’­o’s (1986) notion of decolonization and follows a decolonial approach to unravel the hierarchies that structure the “regime” of child protection and to show how and why child protection approaches may cause conflict. A decolonization of child rights governance requires the development of interventions that align with the perspectives of Zanzibari child protection actors. This is necessary in order to allow protection programs to better fulfill their good intentions. Only through a genuine decolonial frame of thought ­w ill a dismissal of accusations that consider protection interventions neo­co­lo­nial or imperialist undertakings become imaginable (Fay 2019a). In this chapter I also think with the notion of “governance”—­more specifically, child rights governance—in the framework of Foucault’s ([1977] 1991) conceptualization, which emphasizes the instability that is inherent in the very act of governing. As Maria Bonnafous-­Boucher has made clear, governance specifically implies a weakened model of the nation-­state paired with a “consequent repositioning of instances of public authority within it” (2005, 523). In the Zanzibari realm of child rights governance, the state is weakened by the variety of financially power­f ul international organ­i zations that have come to be in charge of this domain of governing and that occasionally contribute to a destabilization of the public authority. The nation-­state’s weakness in turn results in its public social welfare system’s inability to provide institutionalized child protection. Thus, it is largely the religious leaders who have appeared throughout the previous chapters who serve as public authorities, influence m ­ atters of child protection, and negotiate their respective individual power alongside that of the state.



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In this chapter I understand child rights governance as evolving from a pro­ cess of compromise between ­those parties involved in the search for rules of action in regard to child protection in Zanzibar. B ­ ecause the concepts of “governance” and “­children’s rights” are both sociohistorical constructs, they need to be understood as they apply in Zanzibar against the backdrop of the colonial period and a con­temporary decolonial mindset. Thereby, challenges to certain modes of operation in the field of child protection should be understood more as attempts to decolonize governance and revisit hierarchies of knowledge around child protection than as re­sis­tance to change in general. Instead of a binary juxtaposition of international law as contained in the CRC as in opposition to local Zanzibari practices and beliefs, this chapter shows that dissent is inherent in “Western” universalized values on child protection as much as within postcolonial contestations of them. A decolonizing framework can be productive in decentering knowledge production and hierarchization in the realm of child rights governance in Zanzibar (Ngugi wa Thiong’o 1986). Such a theoretical positioning begins with a “Southern” position on the CRC. By interrogating it as a framework that has a dominant influence on child protection policy and largely as an imaginary from the “North,” it becomes pos­si­ble to empathize with t­ hose in Zanzibar who are critical of protection programs, while si­mul­ta­neously showing that this critique is aimed at the mode of implementation, rather than the ultimate goal, of keeping ­children safe. A ­ fter briefly discussing my understandings of child rights governance and decolonization, I revisit child rights governance through child protection actors’ views on it. This is followed by an analy­sis of this data that shows that challenges to child protection must be understood as a form of re­sis­tance to secularization. This re­sis­tance, I propose, can be reduced by decolonizing the Zanzibari child protection apparatus. I conclude that this pro­cess must ultimately be initiated from within Zanzibari society.

Child Rights Governance, Child Protection, and Decolonization Child protection policies are built on the CRC assumption that “parents and the state are best equipped to share responsibility for c ­ hildren’s protection” (Reynolds, Nieuwenhuiys, and Hanson 2006, 292). Imagining c ­ hildren as “governmental subjects” (Babül 2015, 117) therefore becomes the starting point of practical child rights governance. ­There follows the assumption that relations of domination of adults over c ­ hildren are necessary for a state to function as it does, derived from Pamela Reynolds’s (1985, 16) elaboration on the Foucauldian perspective. I then explore child protection practice as a domain of power construction that assumes the governability of an “other” and fosters a hegemonic system made up of ­those who rule and t­ hose who are ruled (Foucault [1977] 1991).

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Through a decolonization approach it becomes pos­si­ble to untangle this network of power relations, b ­ ecause that approach aims to liberate p ­ eople from ideas that ­were enforced on them to create feelings of inferiority. In Zanzibar, protection programs reinforced parents’ and teachers’ perceived feeling of subordination regarding their capabilities to raise and protect their c ­ hildren. This chapter builds on the assumption that child protection programs in Zanzibar operate through and are ultimately rejected for their perceived anti-­Islamic and neo­co­lo­nial connotations. Universalisms “­were deeply implicated in the establishment of Eu­ ro­ pean colonial power” and are not po­ liti­ cally neutral (Tsing 2005, 9). Applying universalized ideas as ­those in the CRC to countries of the “Global South” requires consideration of the CRC’s neo­co­lo­nial connotations. As Anna Tsing has put it well, the matrix of colonialism was defined by considering colonized cultures “particularistic” and thus as “that which cannot grow”; ­those cultures then needed to be enhanced through universalized truths that would be “life-­improving for humanity” (2005, 9). This distinction between the par­tic­u­lar and universal also reflects the spheres of knowledge in which child protection negotiations occur in Zanzibar. The “regimes of truth” (Foucault [1977] 1991) inherent in child protection politics operate as technologies of control that aim to produce a certain type of citizen who is suitable to fulfill the state’s policies. This chapter asks what a decolonized child protection real­ity in Zanzibar would need to look like to be able to eliminate accusations of “Westernization.” It is helpful to recall Lila Abu-­ Lughod’s well-­ k nown inquiry into w ­ hether Muslim ­women need saving. She emphasized that “saving someone” also implies saving them from “something” and thus reinforces “a sense of superiority by Westerners” that must be challenged (2002, 788f). Siding with her critical stance allows a reconsideration of ­whether Zanzibari ­children can only be protected “to be like us”—or like ­children in “Western” industrialized countries—or ­whether it must be acknowledged that “they might want dif­fer­ent ­things than we would want for them” (787). Also impor­tant h ­ ere is Veena Das’s demand to see that “cure”—­and, in this sense, also child protection—­might indeed mean dif­fer­ent ­things to dif­fer­ent p ­ eople (2017, 198). I support the need to be respectful of vari­ ous paths t­ oward social change and to acknowledge differences and that ­doing so may improve c ­ hildren’s lives (Abu-­Lughod 2002, 788). My argument also ties into Edward Said’s (1978) critique of Orientalism, which can similarly be applied to the patronizing ways in which “Western” development organ­izations engage with ­those African socie­ties in which they operate. However, my exploration in this chapter also goes beyond such a binary approach and pays close attention to what Said called “the modern Orient”—­here being con­temporary Zanzibari society—­participating “in its own Orientalizing” (1978, 325). This underlines the extent to which Zanzibari child protection actors are as much a part of “Western” development organ­izations as they may be of the opposition against them, and vice versa—­“Western” actors in the field of



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child protection may not automatically support CRC-­based agendas. This sheds light on the diversity that exists within what are often assumed to be homogeneous groups such as ­children or child protection prac­ti­tion­ers and that contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the field in practice. The child protection actors’ perceptions I focus on in this chapter bring to the fore the patronizing qualities inherent in the protection discourse in Zanzibar. They make clear the extent to which this approach requires decolonization. Eventually, and as a dif­fer­ent path to “liberation,” decolonizing current forms of child protection through a consideration of more inclusive notions of modernity and Islam that go beyond identifications with secularism or Islamism only may make pos­si­ble more balanced, robust, and less hegemonic interventions (Asad 2003).

A Regime of Protection: Revisiting Child Rights Governance in Zanzibar In Zanzibar, child protection through state and nonstate actors is a contested field largely centered on moral and religious disagreements (Burr and Fay 2018, 202). As “judges of normality” (Foucault [1977] 1991, 304), child protection actors prescribe social laws to be adhered to in society and therein face challenges and noncompliance. Taking t­ hose challenges seriously may enable new forms of child protection governance as a decolonized mode of operation that may also produce less opposition, which is now generated by the perceived need to create a distinction from what is considered to be a hegemonic system. This comment by a director at the Ministry of Empowerment, Social Welfare, Youth, ­Women and ­Children (MoESWYWC), that “­those ­matters of not hitting c ­ hildren (kutoku­ piga watoto) are Eu­ro­pean” (ni Ulaya), made clear the presence of a hierarchy of child protection knowledge. The director continued to tell me that, even though Tanzania had ratified the CRC, this did not mean that local laws ­were in accord with it. Societal support for banning corporal punishment, as vis­i­ble in Tanzania’s ratification of the CRC, contrasts with the notion of child protection as an imposition. Even though the ratification of universal conventions like the CRC by Muslim states is critical in regard to a general support of c ­ hildren’s basic h ­ uman rights, “such developments w ­ ill not necessarily provide more care and protection for c ­ hildren, u ­ nless the necessary judicial amendments are made” (Rajabi-­ Ardeshiri 2009, 488). Particularly in Islamic contexts like Zanzibar, “successful” child rights promotion requires “amendments to sections of Shariah law which are seen as contradictory to c ­ hildren’s rights or that justify privileges for boys over girls” (488). Another protection worker at the MoEVT made a similar point, saying that “implementing the program has been difficult, ­because our society does not agree with it” (jamii haikubali) and that community education must precede program implementation.

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Child protection interventions are concerned with managing the ways ­children are chastised and protected. In Zanzibar, this “management” is largely initiated through international organ­izations and implemented through collaborations with local governments. ­These collaborations build on universalized frameworks like the CRC and function through mechanisms of domination and power that are inherent in the discourses about childhood and protection that they authorize (Foucault 1981). Colonialism, too, was about “the management of difference—­the ‘civilized’ ruling the ‘uncivilized’ ” (Pierce and Rao 2006, 208) and also was “an inherently corporeal enterprise” (Boddy 2011, 119). Far from being po­liti­cally neutral, universalisms “­were deeply implicated in the establishment of Eu­ro­pean colonial power” (Tsing 2005, 9). Working with CRC-­based approaches in “Global South” countries therefore suggests tension. Colonizers articulated universal reason in the “matrix of colonialism” and turned it into “the mark of temporally dynamic and spatially expansive forms of knowledge and power” (9). The colonized w ­ ere categorized as “particularistic cultures,” the par­tic­u­lar being “that which cannot grow”; the universal was considered truth-­and life-­improving for humanity (9). This distinction is essential for understanding the knowledge spheres in which child protection negotiations take place in Zanzibar. The hierarchies of knowledge inherent in child protection politics operate as technologies of control that aim at “administering and producing subjects, citizens” (Augé and Colleyn 2006, 53) who suit their policies. If one considers ­these policies as belonging to universalized regimes of power and hence to foreign governments, protection attempts become mere undertakings that render c ­ hildren and adults governable by external powers (Foucault [1977] 1991). Societal approval is essential for any program to be implemented and accepted. “Community members’ participation is the foundation” (kitu cha msingi), said the head of the CPU. Another MoEVT employee’s experience revealed what happens when community members mistrust government programs: In Pemba they even chased me away (walinifukuza). “Go away with your program! We w ­ ill hit our ­children—­there is no changing (hamna kubadi­ lika). ­Children are like goats, so we need to hit them.” I was disappointed, but I went back again. ­People in the villages look at me like “Eh, you! You received money (ushakula pesa1) from the wazungu and now you betray us” (unatudanganya). When t­ here is a sheikh, ­people listen more.

Yet, even though my interlocutors frequently drew on the dichotomy of “Western” versus “Zanzibari” values, ­there was variety within ­those realms themselves. The employee’s experience illustrates how the categories of the “West” and the “local” are themselves riven with contradictions. Zanzibari child protection government and aid prac­ti­tion­ers w ­ ere frequently perceived as equally “Western” for promoting ideas that ­were considered to lead to moral decay or as fraudsters who only worked for personal profit. Implementing programs with



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­limited civil society support is inherently challenging and raises questions of owner­ship. Instead of linking to what local communities identify as impor­ tant, the programs are seen as in the interests of the implementers. In such cases, ­people may participate in them just to earn money or to get some other benefit, not b ­ ecause they genuinely support the approach. For example, a local child rights activist told me about a visit she made to a school: “A child was held over a ­table by four boys and the teacher was hitting. We could hear the skin g ­ oing “ts-­ts-­ts [making a sharp sound with her tongue]. When we checked they told us, ‘We ­don’t like nosy ­people; go mind your own ­people.’ ” As much as the law professor in the beginning of the chapter identified me as a “Western” anthropologist with a general “you,” an othering “they” can also be applied to ­people of one’s own culture or religion, simply ­because they are engaged in certain discursive fields. A head teacher described that “the ­people of the program who go to the villages face many challenges, ­because they say that a child may not be hit (asipigwe) at all. But for a person who is used to ­doing this (aliyezoea), they feel t­hose p ­ eople destroy their tradition (mila) and custom” (desturi). In Zanzibar, t­ hese tensions lie at the intersection of Islam and Zanzibari-­Swahili cultural practice (see chapter 3), where the notions of adabu and adhabu play out.

Hierarchies of Morality Not only does the globalized protection discourse tend to be equated with “Western” modes of child-­rearing values but it is also accused of contributing to the decay of Zanzibari-­Swahili approaches to keep c ­ hildren safe. In Zanzibar, as in other sub-­Saharan African countries, the CRC framework is frequently considered an imposition of “Western” norms and values. As Ali Mazrui has emphasized, development interventions—­a nd this also applies for child protection policy and practice—­and their associated discourses are commonly viewed as resulting in “declining moral standards” that “pose a significant threat especially to the younger generations of the Muslim world” (1986, 19). A director at the MoESWYWC echoed this point: Back in the day it was better b ­ ecause ­people just raised their ­children (wamelea tu). Now, we have to teach p ­ eople how to raise their c ­ hildren, when then they ­were already ­doing it. We use our resources to take them back (kuwarudisha) to where they came from. And why? B ­ ecause globalization (utandawazi) already destroyed (imeshaporomoka) our morals (maadili).

Equating globalization with “Westernization” and child protection as a part of it that operates through “foreign” conceptions of childhood and safety leads to Zanzibaris viewing the child protection regime as a threat. The law professor’s characterization of other ways of caring for and keeping ­children safe as

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being externally imposed echoed this view. It is necessary to consider ongoing po­liti­cal change and ­people’s be­hav­ior t­ oward c ­ hildren as intertwined, not least concerning an essentialist conceptualization of “tradition” in which change is commonly equated with loss (Morton 1996, 264). CRC-­oriented socialization and po­liti­cal changes around c ­ hildren’s rights legislation are regarded as leading to a loss of “morality” and “culture,” and it and t­ hose laws are seen as “a model of the opposite values and practices” (265)—­largely ­because of a simplified conception of “Western” rights standards as contesting Islamic values. Robert Ahearne recorded similar notions in his work on development (maendeleo) and pro­gress in mainland Tanzania, where el­derly p ­ eople perceived conditions of everyday life as having “ ‘gone backward’ ” (-­r udi nyuma) (2016, 78f). This further suggests that the child protection discourse in Zanzibar does not face opposition ­because ­people support violent be­hav­ior against c ­ hildren, but rather ­because it is too closely linked to a notion of the “West” and insufficiently inclusive of vernacular cultural and religious norms that co-­construct Zanzibari social personhood. A conversation with Bi Asha, a retired teacher in her early sixties, confirmed this point. Having e ­ arlier taught at the Zanzibar International School, she recently opened her own nursery school with lower fees in her own neighborhood: Discipline is challenging. I try not to use bakora. I try the corner; I try shouting. I tell the ­children to apologize. If that ­doesn’t work, we call the parents. Then they tell us: “Please use the cane; my child is used to it—they ­won’t understand other­w ise.” When I explain that I d ­ on’t use it at all, ­people say I raise in a Eu­ro­pean way (ninalea kizungu). They look at me like I am a mzungu. But most ­children are beaten at home and come with marks on their f­ aces. The madrasa next door is a lot of trou­ble. The ustadh locks c ­ hildren in the toilet or inside with him to hit them. When I hear them crying, I go over and let them out. Now the ustadh complains to the community, that if they let me do that, they ­won’t need him as ustadh anymore. One girl told me, that when she is hit on her ­behind, she has to pee and ­can’t have other ­children see that. It is so humiliating. The hitting ­w ill go away, but I ­don’t know when.

The close association of Bi Asha’s use of alternative forms of discipline with a “Western” or “Eu­ro­pean” way of child-­rearing vividly illustrates this constructed opposition.

Hierarchies of Beliefs The discursive hierarchies by which child protection is defined in Zanzibar are intertwined with a perceived devaluation of Islam. “In the madrasas ­people ­don’t like to apply the policy and planning for c ­ hildren’s protection. They only draw on the Qur’an to say what applies, even though that might be dif­fer­ent from the policy,” an official at the Department of W ­ omen and ­Children explained. Yet, a



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­lawyer in the Mufti’s Office attributed the caning of c ­ hildren in the madrasa not to Islamic law but to the lack of teacher training: The reason is that t­ here is no teacher training college for madrasa teachers. We need to introduce minimum teaching qualifications. Teachers play a key part in the m ­ atter of child abuse (udhalilishaji ya watoto). In many reported cases, the perpetrators are young teachers (walimu vijana), not ­those with ­great wisdom (busara kubwa). We want them to sit an exam before starting to teach.

Another sheikh asserted that “madrasa teachers have no mea­sure (kigezo) of knowing when they hurt (namwumiza) the child or not. They ­don’t get any training.” The lack of training given to teachers in the use of alternative forms of discipline, and in pedagogy more generally, suggests the positive potential inherent in providing that training. In Zanzibar, the ­children’s ­human rights discourse is frequently challenged as “a Western invention” that neglects the “cultural specificity of the Muslim world or non-­Western cultures in general” (Peters 2005, 174). Yet, most Muslim-­majority states are t­oday signatories to ­human rights conventions, which reflects their at least partial agreement with universal ­human rights standards (174). Implementation of a Positive Discipline program without offering teacher training as a part of it or without the collaborative development of guidelines that explain dif­fer­ent forms of child discipline, unsurprisingly, complicates the implementation of an integrated protection approach. The MoEVT program coordinator for alternative forms of discipline in schools explained what she considered to be the “best” way to implement child protection policy: In my trainings I bring together madrasa and state schoolteachers with the aim to eliminate (kuondosha) corporal punishment. But we ­don’t call the program “Positive Discipline” anymore; we call it “Islamic Way of Nurturing ­Children” (malezi kwa njia ya uislamu). Of course, this is still Positive Discipline, but we have turned it around (tumeigeuza). We d ­ on’t put it open anymore, b ­ ecause ­people d ­ on’t like it (hawaipendi), but we use the same technique. Sheikh Mubarak tells ­people the dangers of beating (kuwapiga) ­children and that ­people should not punish them (wasiwaad­ hibu). We trained many madrasa teachers already. Sheikh Munir from the Teacher Training College also teaches t­ hose friendly ways of teaching.

When I ask if this reframing of the program took place in cooperation with Save the ­Children, she added, No, this is all ­under my department (idara), not ­under Save the ­Children. The difference between the programs (miradi) is that we d ­ on’t like saying

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­things directly. If you say t­ hings too directly, like telling a teacher he may not hit, then he w ­ on’t agree. Instead we lead them through religion (tunawazungusha kwenye dini); we tell them that Muslims are supposed to raise like this and that, and therefore ­shouldn’t punish their ­children.

Placing existing child protection approaches in a religious framework was thus regarded essential to preventing them as being understood as exclusively secular or even anti-­Islamic. Overall, teachers and parents are resistant to child protection programs ­because of the ways the programs operate, which are viewed as insensitive to p ­ eople’s living conditions and as undermining parental authority, not ­because they reject the content. In the context of Egypt, Heidi Morrison suggests that childhood reforms have largely come “from a re­sis­tance to imperialism, specifically the colonial gaze” (2015, 24). Her critical evaluation of colonial impositions on parents that dictate “what steps adults need to take to raise a civilized child” (38) aligns with my interlocutors’ re­sis­tance to being told how to best care for and protect their ­children. That the classical imperial gaze deemed parents “incapable of raising civilized ­children” (39) explains Zanzibari teachers’ and parents’ partial rejection of international standards. The under­ lying accusation that they are incapable of protecting c ­ hildren without “Western” guidance, which leads inevitably to “pro­gress and civilization,” links to what Morrison calls “morals in c ­ hildren’s education so they can become full social adults” (41); we encountered this pro­cess in Zanzibar as determined by the acquisition, display, and application of adabu and adhabu (see chapter 2).

Monetary Hierarchies Alongside the hierarchies of morality and belief, my interlocutors also emphasized the financial powers that drive child protection initiatives in Zanzibar. Although participants and collaborators perceived ­children’s rights organ­ izations as responsible for planning and implementing “leading” protection programs, t­ here was confusion about whose financial responsibility it was to provide and realize child rights and protection activities. An employee at the Unit for Alternative Discipline explained that this uncertainty created roadblocks to implementing programs: I ­don’t have any means of transport to reach the schools. This office building ( jengo) belongs to the government (serikali) but all the equipment belongs to Save the ­Children. Now, should it be Save the ­Children or the government who supplies transport? The government could do it, but ­because they already saw that someone [Save the ­Children] is providing help (anasaidia), they w ­ on’t.

In this situation, the government provided the space for the program and the participants; Save the ­Children provided the program content and paid most of



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the expenses. Who was responsible for transport costs, however, remained in question. This situation also decides ­whether child protection activities can take place at all. The National C ­ hildren’s Advisory Board (NCAB), for example, has been looked at “as Save the ­Children’s advisory board for years,” an employee of the NCAB told me; this points to the difficulty of creating a sense of owner­ship within the government when activities are largely financed by parallel structures. “It’s tricky, b ­ ecause if we d ­ on’t do it [offer a program], then t­ here is nothing. But then the kids expect us to carry it and do it,” the aid worker added, suggesting that ­there might be a need to explore the extent to which this organ­ization is even interested in realizing the child protection agenda. International and local organ­i zations officially are “partners,” but if the former fund most of the programs, then ­these relationships become hierarchical: ­because “the former hold the funds, . . . ​the latter are commonly obliged to operate in line with the plans and wishes coming from above in the manner of a subcontractor rather than a genuine partner” (Hart 2015, 61). The financial real­ity of Zanzibari child protection ­causes the system to function in “quasi-­colonial terms of engagement” (61). Achieving a decolonization of international protection systems thus becomes even more pressing. A sense of owner­ship and financial power link to each other. In the Zanzibari child protection context, international organ­izations pay 80 to 90 ­percent of the ministries’ bud­get for ­children’s rights activities. Such an obvious financial de­pen­dency puts into question what r­ eally is driving government institutions’ collaborations with international organ­izations on m ­ atters like child protection (Burr and Fay 2018, 194). “It’s about money; it’s dollar-­driven; ­people are very greedy. They d ­ on’t start from within (hawaanzia ndani), so they are not serious,” said a former teacher who is active in the Zanzibar Teachers’ Union (ZATU) when asked what ­were the real ­drivers of protection initiatives in the archipelago. He continued, The prob­lem is that the proj­ect is not demand driven. It is donor driven. It is not us, the ­people of Zanzibar, who drive it. Someone from outside (mtu wa nje) came with money and the ministers all agreed. But this is not ok ­because it ­doesn’t address our most crucial issues. We have other prob­lems—­not that of the cane (siyo ya bakora). We can do that too, but it must include (ihusishwe) every­one. ­Children themselves ­don’t appreciate adabu mbadala. No one is ready for it, but the teachers are forced to use it.

His analy­sis raises the question w ­ hether programs that address issues that local communities do not think are pressing concerns ­will ever be effective. The issue of owner­ship also shows how other components of the activities, which are part of national child protection system building, are received locally. How committed ­w ill the local government be to the child protection agenda if it only funds

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10 to 20 ­percent of protection programs? A long-­term child protection advocacy official at the MoESWYWC complained that other ministry departments “­don’t see the reason for putting aside a bud­get for ­children’s m ­ atters. . . . In 2011, they tried it with the implementation of the ­Children’s Act, but they ­didn’t reach anywhere (hawakufikia popote) ­because it ­wasn’t costed.”

An Apparatus between Religious and Secular Law Zanzibar’s child protection situation’s neo­co­lo­nial hierarchies are further complicated by the two types of law that legitimize protection practices. Whereas in the archipelago’s official child protection sphere, the aid discourse is legitimated through international ­legal frameworks, Zanzibar’s l­ egal system combines both Islamic law and British common law (Stiles and Thompson 2015, 7f). That the legitimacy of the Zanzibari protection system is based entirely on notions of ­children’s rights creates difficulties for implementing child protection programs. This framework advocates be­hav­iors that go against existing social laws and norms that apply to the Muslim-­majority context of Zanzibar, as made clear by Bi Nuna’s example: We have two sets of law (sheria)2 that often contradict (vinapingana)—­ religion and the government. It is impossible to adjust them, and this is a challenge. Imagine a child wants to get married, but she is only sixteen years old. According to the international definition she is still a child and this marriage would be considered “early marriage.” But on another level, she already started menstruating (ameshavunja ungo), which means she is of marriageable age. With child rights you can only emphasize the bad effects of child marriage, but in the end, it is her decision if she gets married and no one can be sued for it.

Child protection programs are built on universalized rights frameworks without attending to the complex ­legal system that defines the Zanzibari situation. Everyday life in Zanzibar is structured by a ­legal pluralism that combines common law, Sharia law, and other social norms, given the understanding of law as “what­ever ­people identify and treat through their social practices” as such (Tamanaha 2000, 313). Institutionalized attempts to regulate ­children’s protection are thus conditioned by this multiplicity of norms. Given such complexity, a “postcolonial critique” of ­human rights has been deemed necessary, for example, through a “re-­reading of ­human rights in post-­colonial Africa by observing how ordinary ­people import, recast and produce ideas of ­human rights in their life worlds” (Akoth 2014, 94). The critique that “the ­human rights discourse is one of power, the aim of which is the control and manipulation of knowledge and, ultimately, society” (101), resonated with the concerns that many of my research interlocutors expressed. Thus, a demand for “multiple vocality in the



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documenting and reading of h ­ uman rights” (103) would equally support the decolonization of child protection interventions in Zanzibar—­which supports my recommendation to critique rights-­based approaches in postcolonial states from “within” the systems where they apply. “In the beginning, ­there was neither a law (sheria), nor a policy (sera), nor ­ ntil we came to where we are any guidelines (mwongozo). We started from zero, u ­today,” an MoESWYWC staff member asserted. The C ­ hildren’s Act of 2011 was the first ­legal act passed to decrease vio­lence against ­children. Although it does not prohibit the use of corporal punishment, it forbids inflicting cruel, inhumane, or degrading punishment on a child, while allowing chastisement for disciplinary purposes and at a “reasonable” level. This failure to abolish caning and the lack of official criteria for determining what is reasonable chastisement have hindered the effectiveness of efforts to regulate caning through parallel structures like international development programs. Yet, as a nonlocal development worker explained, it was very difficult to pass any bill addressing vio­lence against ­children: We started with a zero [first] draft. Across the board, corporal punishment was a red flag issue. So, we de­cided to not address it head on through a ban. This would have potentially compromised the ­whole piece of work: laying a legislative framework for the establishment of a national system to respond to c ­ hildren in need of care and protection.

In many Eu­ro­pean or common law countries where physical chastisement is banned ­today, only provisions on banning inhuman, degrading, and cruel punishment w ­ ere in their first laws passed against corporal punishment. Over time, t­hese provisions decreased societal ac­cep­tance of “reasonable” punishment and ultimately led to the banning of corporal punishment altogether. Child protection prac­ti­tion­ers w ­ ere hopeful that a similar pro­cess would take place in Zanzibar ­a fter the legislative framework was established. The MoESWYWC staff member quoted ­ earlier recalled the first attempt to approach a ban more directly: In the earliest draft, which was a ­mistake in retrospect, ­there was a provision prohibiting corporal punishment explic­itly. This became the lightning rod for all kinds of reactions and oppositions to having an act. It would have been better to not have it in the draft but to talk about it and suggest it as a possibility to include instead.

Openly making a ban on caning the aim of the initiative was not well received and slowed down pro­gress in achieving the goals of child protection initiatives. A Eu­ro­pean aid worker noted that the organ­ization he worked for was anticipating a pos­si­ble l­ egal reform in 2020, “maybe a referendum or an amendment to the current ­Children’s Act.” He added that it “needs to be made explicit

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saying any form of physical and humiliating punishment (PHP), ­because so many parents d ­ on’t consider corporal punishment as abuse.” Their imagination of a direct ban being pos­si­ble only ­after passage of a referendum or amendment to the current act further suggests that gradual change may be achieved by decreasing p ­ eople’s tolerance of certain forms of be­hav­iors. The extent to which government regulations appear disconnected from local real­ity was exemplified by a comment made by a headmaster of one of the pi­lot schools: “Only when the headmaster i­ sn’t feeling well or is busy, and an incident has already occurred, they allow another teacher to deal (amshughulikie) with that student and use the cane.” When I inquired about what legitimates transferring the exclusive right to chastise from headmasters to other teachers, my conversation partner replied: “This is b ­ ecause our tradition (mila) teaches us that ­ hole society. A teacher is like a parent (mzazi/ a child is raised (analelewa) by the w mlezi). He takes the responsibility (jukumu) of being with the child and correcting them” (kuwarekebisha). Just like the Zanzibari social norm of community child-­rearing (malezi ya jamii) that distributes responsibility for assuring ­children’s manners (adabu) and protection among all adults, so all teachers can be responsible for correcting the students’ conduct in school. A cultural discourse was thus used to defend flexible interpretations of l­egal guidelines. Some of my students at ZU w ­ ere dissatisfied by this l­egal flexibility and the large room for interpretation of chastisement regulations. When in class we discussed a Zanzibari government campaign to stop vio­lence against w ­ omen and c ­ hildren that launched in December 2015, one said, “It’s good to be looking at t­ hese t­ hings, but the laws (sheria) have to change first. ­There is still too much bribing. Even if the sheria is ­there, ­there are too many ways around the system so that cases ­don’t get followed up properly.” They suggested ­going around or bypassing the system, as a means of countering power­f ul forces of re­sis­tance. Many local protection actors have to navigate between globalized and Zanzibari discourses on child protection, which shape their work and lives to dif­fer­ent extents. A former teacher turned child protection actor explained the inherent conflict as he moved between ­these discursive spheres: “If you ask me as a teacher, when is it ok to hit a child—­only when ­children fight with each other or a teacher. But if you ask me as a child protection worker—­there is no situation when a child can be beaten at school b ­ ecause all can be resolved.” Despite disapproving normalized physical chastisement, he felt caught between two opposite positions and strug­gled to accept only one discourse as defining the best course. What rules to follow regarding corporal punishment regulations touches on the dynamic interaction of the secular and Sharia law and what arenas of life can be the subject of legislation. In this regard several religious leaders opposed c ­ hildren’s rights legislation, b ­ ecause they felt Islamic regulations would be compromised by universalized rights approaches. This mutual disapproval of sociocultural and religious justifications in support of the practice and



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the global child protection discourse is central to the insufficient l­egal agreement over questions of corporal punishment and runs through dif­fer­ent implementation levels. Child rights-­based protection intervention against physical chastisement was thus contested for being understood as anti-­Islamic. Overall, ­people placed more trust in religious authorities and guidelines than in government structures and activities. This comes as no surprise if one considers that Zanzibari government ministries are largely financed by international development bud­gets that are viewed as promoting “Western” discourses that result in a decay of Zanzibari morals. ­Because of the ­great impact of Islam and Islamic law on everyday life, collaboration with religious leaders and integration of Islamic approaches to keeping ­children safe w ­ ere considered to be particularly impor­tant. As discussed throughout the previous chapters, sheikhs in support of the child protection agenda ­were frequently able “to make p ­ eople understand that in Islam t­ here is a pro­cess before hitting” (kabla ya kupiga), as Khalid from the Unit for Alternative Discipline emphasizes. He felt that establishing a procedure for hitting helped decrease tolerance of all forms of physical chastisement. In contrast, a headteacher argued, “Particularly at madrasa it is impossible to fully abolish it (kuiondosha). You can decrease it (kuipunguza), but eliminating it is not easy. In a Muslim ­house­hold (nyumba ya mwislamu), ­there has to be a cane (lazima iwe na bakora ndani). That’s why ­people oppose this program.” In Zanzibar, the relevance of a focus on the religious discourse and its actors is clear. Nevertheless, ­there are also complications inherent in this approach. This consideration of existing hierarchies of protection practice in light of neo-­and postcolonial undertakings, in the context of ­legal pluralism, lays the groundwork for understanding what a rearrangement of protection discourses—­a decolonization of the child protection apparatus—­may mean in the broader context of notions of Westernization, secularization, and modernity.

Decolonizing Child Protection: Moving beyond Opposition This chapter has focused on voices critical of child rights governance to understand how best the system can be changed to reduce their perceived feelings of imposition and devaluation. The comments of the child protection actors in this chapter reveal the extent to which the child protection real­ity in Zanzibar is “colonized by the development discourse” (Escobar 1995, 5). Above all, reservations against child protection need to be understood as re­sis­tance and as a means of creating a distinction as a nation-state. Second, a decolonial frame of thought as put forward by Ngugi wa Thiong’o could facilitate the inclusion within child protection practice of “non-Western” concepts of child-­care and protection and thereby serve as the starting point for creating a more authentically Zanzibari protection system.

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Universalistic child protection regimes are built on princi­ples and ideas that originated in the Eu­ro­pean Enlightenment, “in which rationality, the search for objective truth, and a belief in a movement ­towards modernity are paramount” (Crewe and Harrison 1998, 15). To break with the “discursive regimes” (Foucault 1981, 53) that normalize, naturalize, and shape our thinking about ­children and their protection, protection programming should therefore more strongly acknowledge itself as a “historically produced discourse” (Escobar, 1995, 6). ­Doing so w ­ ill help Zanzibari child protection policy makers and government staff regain authority over child-­rearing and protection definitions and allow for a construction of vernacular models that may be perceived less as mediated by non-­Zanzibari knowledge and history. In contrast, attempting to remake child protection standards in the “South” by drawing on standards of the “West” ­w ill inevitably dissatisfy ­those who are targeted. Child protection actors are often perceived as “ideological traffic police” (Escobar 1995, 6) who prescribe the changes they expect to see. It is thus necessary to flatten, or rearrange, the prevailing protection discourse’s order by acknowledging the existence and relevance of Zanzibari values and norms. Through an active inclusion of sociocultural imaginations about achieving young ­people’s safety and protection, the development of more situationally sensitive and robust approaches to child protection may take place. Thus, instead of “remaking” o ­ thers’ values and standards, child protection practice might benefit from drawing on less passive approaches of “remaking oneself,” much like with adabu that can imply someone drawing on inner strength to discipline his or her be­hav­ior. ­Because the ways in which p ­ eople change their thinking and practices differ, it is impor­tant to avoid impositions of thought: “nothing is more arrogant than trying to dictate to ­others” (Foucault [1979] 2000, 444). What would a decolonized child protection real­ity in Zanzibar need to look like so that the law professor quoted at the beginning would not immediately object to the idea of child protection? As Frantz Fanon made clear, decolonization aims to decenter modes of knowing and “sets out to change the order of the world” (1963, 36). This approach includes an intention to increase owner­ship, to prioritize vernacular knowledge, to decrease a perceived feeling of subjugation through international policy implementation, and to avoid conceiving of child protection ser­vices as a materialization of evolutionary transformation and moral progression t­ oward a Eurocentric idea of modernity. In Decolonising the Mind (1986), Ngugi wa Thiong’o spells out the cultural aspects of colonization and how to counteract them. He focuses on language as a “means of self-­definition” (4) and recounts his personal experiences in colonized K ­ enya when British colonial actors used En­glish to deliberately sideline Swahili and other local languages. En­glish, thereby, became much more than a language: it was a tool of control and ­mental oppression and ultimately “the mea­ sure of intelligence” (12). As a concrete expression of his anti-­imperialist stance,



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Ngugi from 1977 onward wrote his novels exclusively in his ­mother tongue Gikuyu and abstained from using En­glish. That many questioned why an African writer was working in his ­mother tongue, for him only revealed “how far imperialism has distorted the view of African realities” (28). This, I argue, holds equally true for the field of child protection. For Ngugi ­every language has a dual character—as “a means of communication and a carrier of culture” (1986, 13). Colonialism’s central area of domination was “the m ­ ental universe of the colonized, the control, through culture, of how ­people perceived themselves and their relationship to the world” (16). Challenges to child protection programs make sense through this lens: the language used in the context of child rights governance frequently does not align with the language chosen as a tool of self-­definition in Zanzibar. Thus, the language of child protection in Zanzibar, by demanding authority over how best to keep ­children safe without sufficiently questioning its own concepts, reproduces a similar situation to Ngugi’s colonized childhood experiences. Decoloniality primarily means “to listen carefully,” but it also implies understanding “how to become a better ally to t­ hose who are directly exposed to the everyday realities of coloniality” (Schultz 2017, 139). A decolonization of child protection would therefore imply a liberation of child protection actors from oppressive thought and a reconstitution of the practice on Zanzibari’s own terms. To gain more control over child protection, Zanzibari actors would need to be given more decision-­making power within protection programs. In line with my interlocutors’ perspectives, liberation from suppressive thought would also mean that child protection actors acknowledge that ­there are many approaches to protection instead of exclusively relying on the universal CRC-­based conception. Religious ideas and values of childhood and safety would thus need to be integrated into protection programs and religious authorities involved not only as token representatives but also as continually involved co-­constructors of program content. Instead of programs exclusively building on religious or on secular values, this would mean that child protection actors would create spaces for open dialogue on conflicting ideas and norms. If religious frameworks continue to be excluded from child rights governance, despite the importance of religion to ­people’s everyday life and language, a concept of modernity ­w ill be promoted that does not allow space for questions of faith, and the child protection regime w ­ ill inevitably face re­ sis­ tance in Muslim-­ majority settings. Therefore, in Zanzibar, a decolonial reconsideration of internationally prescribed so-­called modernities like child protection should include Islamic ways of being in the world that allow and enable alternative conceptualizations of pro­gress (Appadurai 2004; Sahlins 2002). Working with religious leaders and structures can productively contribute to driving societal change concerning ­children’s safety, despite the aid discourse’s dominance within the realm of child

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protection. Conversely, excluding Islamic and other vernacular notions of child protection from universalized policy-­driven child protection programming ­will continue to lead to their broader exclusion from ideas of modernity and to their being considered as a “traditional past” that is incompatible with “developmental ­f utures.” In Zanzibar, as elsewhere, many Muslims “strive to be both modern and Muslim” (Marsden and Retsikas 2013, 20). Conceptions of being Muslim and being modern should thus not be viewed as contradictory but should be acknowledged in their own entanglements. To do so, child protection actors need to recognize and take seriously the existing differences within mistakenly homogenized “local” and religious groups and address and negotiate them publicly. A reconceptualization of protection programs should take place along the lines of the Comaroffs’ (1993) concept of “multiple modernities” as the practice of continually reconstituting multiple cultural programs that differentiate between modernity and Westernization (Eisenstadt, 2000, 2f). To decrease misinterpretations of and objections t­ oward child protection programs, impositions of a linear “mea­sure­ment of modernity” (Axelby and Crewe 2013, 118) should be avoided, and “an equality of intelligences” (Biehl 2014, 106) supported instead. According to Pat Caplan, in Mafia Island concepts of “modernity” in the Swahili-­ speaking realm are defined by notions of kwenda na wakati (to go with the time), which imply a change in a society’s values, and of wafadhili (donors), in regard to development aid (2009, 214). Her interlocutors’ accounts of feeling hatari (risk/danger) of being excluded from maendeleo (development/progress) and an associated “loss of culture” through foreign influences (219) resemble my own research participants’ emotions concerning the potential of child protection interventions to result in moral decay. To mitigate such fears and enable nongeneralized and non-­imperialist ways of kwenda na wakati and maendeleo, “other” modernities need to be valued. Just as Zanzibari p ­ eople’s everyday realities are structured predominantly by Muslim thought, so ­w ill any pro­cesses of change. Perceiving protection approaches as in opposition to Islamic ideals increases the perception that they are incompatible with pious Zanzibaris’ notions of childhood socialization. Drawing on Islamic approaches and working with religious leaders as educators on ­children’s rights issues, instead, could offer a way “of deflecting accusations of taking a ‘Western’ or anti-­Muslim approach” (Kirmani and Phillips 2011, 93) to c ­ hildren’s rights. Even though Sharia law and common law both apply in Zanzibar, social norms and values in society are and w ­ ill remain interwoven with Islam. In her work on ­children’s agency and Islam, Janette Habashi argues that “the agency of religion as re­sis­tance that provides an opportunity for both solidarity throughout the world, and re­sis­tance of globalized hegemony. . . . ​Religion as re­sis­tance parallels and responds to global power. It is a tool to give voice to the oppressed” (2011, 142). My interlocutors’ Islam-­based objections may also pre­sent an opportunity for resisting hegemony through globalized aid regimes.



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“We need to raise awareness with teachers by using the Qur’an and the had­ ith. Thereby we can look at the Qur’an not as traditional but also as modern,” an official in the Department of W ­ omen and C ­ hildren emphasized. Seeing the Qur’an and Islamic values as modern and integrating religious notions of child-­ rearing into approaches may help better protect ­children. ­Because modernity may mean many ­things, “from owning a radio to speaking En­glish” (Crewe and Harrison 1998, 134), practically in Zanzibar this approach means that child protection programs also work with teachers in madrasas. A systematic decolonization of child protection should further decrease the Zanzibari government’s economic de­pen­dency on international organ­izations’ child protection bud­gets. Increasing a sense of local owner­ship over programs that work to improve ­children’s lives is key to their effectiveness. Analyzing ­whether international programs are effective and respond to community needs is equally impor­tant, especially if a program runs predominantly on external financial support. If Westernization happens without modernization, as Ali Mazrui has argued is happening in Africa, the mere introduction of new frameworks ­will be insufficient to assure that their content is “modern” too (1986, 201). Newly introduced child protection structures, such as Save the C ­ hildren’s “systems approach to child protection,” which have been considered successful elsewhere, run the risk of being l­ ittle more than empty packaging. For Mazrui, “the tension between new imported structures and old resilient cultures” is caused by Eu­ro­pean colonial rule having been “more effective in destroying indigenous African structures than in destroying African culture” (20). In Zanzibar similarly, Western protection structures may define the creation of a social welfare system, but not the religious and cultural content that p ­ eople consider relevant to fill t­ hese structures. If that content is lacking, international child rights organ­ izations may end up disempowering local actors and civil society owner­ship of child protection m ­ atters, ­because their financial and influential mono­poly w ­ ill leave ­little space for less costly but equally impor­tant initiatives to grow. If government bodies rely predominantly on external funding to undertake protection interventions, the formation of a civil society that actively demands and implements change ­w ill not be supported. Strengthening civil society is difficult when t­ here are many links between NGOs and the government itself, and hence many relationships that define the forms that initiatives take. Guaranteeing accountability that prevents nepotism and hence the mixing of private and po­liti­cal interests is problematic if civil society, as in Zanzibar, is weak.3 As Roman Loimeier has pointed out, in the postcolonial period “Islamic discourses on education are si­mul­ta­neously linked to pro­cesses of both Westernization and modernization,” in which the power of definition and providing orientation is increasingly linked to the secular dialectics of development as defined by Eu­rope and Northern Amer­i­ca (2009, 529). Hesitation to engage in child-­r ights-­based protection programs caused by opposition to external

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pro­cesses of modernization and to Islam’s perceived loss of authority in the governance of social life should thus be viewed in connection to secularism, which is “centrally located in ‘modernity’ ” (Asad 2003, 12). However, considering laws on the use of corporal punishment as “a shifting geo jurisprudence of licit and illicit body contacts,” which “fundamentalist religious groups” (McGillivray 1997, 211) make par­tic­u­lar use of, emphasizes the dangers of using overly or exclusively religious frameworks to promote c ­ hildren’s safety and well-­being. The danger of Islamic approaches turning into “Islamic Fundamentalism” (Parkin 1995, 201)—­that in Zanzibar is increasingly fueled by “the hegemony of tourism” (Keshodkar 2013, 165) and religious revival with new forms of Islamic involvement (Turner 2009, 239)—­may become an equally exclusive “alternative modernity” (258). Child protection interventions build on secular norms and values, but secularism itself can lead to exclusion (Asad 2003). This may happen with programs that move child and ­family ­matters out of Zanzibar’s religious private sphere into secular public spaces. Like child protection interventions, secularism “presupposes new concepts of ‘religion,’ ‘ethics,’ and ‘politics,’ and new imperatives associated with them” (1f). Social norms that constitute Zanzibari culture—­such as the acquisition and display of adabu—­may be replaced with “alternatives” to adabu mbadala. Although in a secular and technical development context, such alternatives to adabu may be imaginable, replacing them with external impositions is unthinkable in Zanzibar. The role of religion must be acknowledged and upheld in child protection interventions that are part of a “modernity proj­ect” that aims at institutionalizing new modes of care for c ­ hildren. Modern secular governance has exacerbated, rather than reduced, religious tensions and inequalities, “hardening interfaith bound­a ries and polarizing religious differences” (Mahmood 2016, 1). If this pro­cess occurs without sufficiently contextualizing child protection interventions as in Zanzibar, it may further the growth of an Islamic opposition and of religious tension that build on simplified, binary notions of the Muslim world versus the West. According to Mahmood, secularism “emanates, in part, from the structure of the modern liberal state” (2016, 2). As a force in the creation of both religious conflict and child protection interventions, its aim “to create a body politic in which all its members are equal before the law” (2). This is difficult in contexts where liberalism is not perceived, for example, in participation, but rather is located in silence. Secularism’s par­tic­u­lar aim “to reor­ga­nize substantive features of religious life, stipulating what religion is or o ­ ught to be” (3) inevitably ­faces rejection, if perceived as imposed from the outside. As a “discursive operation of power” (3), secularism generates and establishes the bound­aries of the public, private, po­liti­cal, and religious spheres. According to Mahmood, this is problematic in the postcolonial era b ­ ecause the state is “entwined with the history of power inequalities between the West and non-­West, not least b ­ ecause



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many of its signature concepts, institutions, and practices w ­ ere introduced through (direct or indirect) colonial rule” (10f). This undoubtedly holds true for child protection programs in Muslim Zanzibar, which must negotiate the connections between and frequent collisions of religious and secular ideals in its approaches, unintentionally making the power of religion “more, rather than less, impor­tant to the identity of the majority and minority populations” (15) and risking new exclusive, and potentially fundamentalist, misinterpretations.

Conclusion This chapter explored how to read re­sis­tance to child protection programs in Zanzibar as being neo­co­lo­nial or Westernizing interventions that lead to moral decay. By considering the wider hierarchical structures through which protection discourses authorize practices, I showed how child-­rights-­based approaches are often perceived as Western impositions of modernity and portray child protection as anti-­Islamic. I then deconstructed the hierarchy of protection practices that build on universalized ideas of well-­being, discussing decolonization, Westernization, and secularization. The conceptualization of decolonization as a form of liberation from ideas enforced on p ­ eople to create feelings of inferiority framed the discussion of protection approaches as applied to improve Zanzibari ­children’s well-­being. This fi­nally led me to suggest rearranging the discursive hierarchies of protection knowledge and child rights governance in accordance with the priorities reflected in Zanzibari child protection prac­ti­tion­ers’ accounts. Rejection of child protection programs did not immediately translate into adults’ indifference concerning Zanzibari ­ children’s safety and well-­ being. It instead stemmed from the insufficient inclusion of Islamic and other vernacular understandings of pro­gress and change, of growing up in the archipelago, of moral hierarchies, and claims to modernity. The work of the government of Zanzibar and the international organ­izations it cooperates with is largely based on such Western definitions, which then clash with t­hose of other actors in Zanzibar. Above all, ­there remains a lack of consensus regarding questions of ­children’s protection and physical chastisement, which shows in the ways that the interventions delivered by local child protection actors face rejection. Implementing child protection programs in places with multiple ­legal situations like Zanzibar is very difficult. Identifying the need to decolonize child protection practice as it currently applies, according to my interlocutors’ views on existing hierarchies of knowledge in that field, allowed us to see how child protection interventions may improve and move away from hegemonic terms. As the accounts have shown, ­people have already begun this pro­cess, on their own terms, by building alternatives to child protection policy within or outside Islamic traditions. Ultimately, what a decolonized child protection apparatus would eventually look like is not for me to say but can only be agreed on by Zanzibari development

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prac­ti­tion­ers. Although as an anthropologist I may pose questions and suggest paths t­ oward a pos­si­ble reor­ga­ni­za­tion, in the end, Zanzibari child protection can only be decolonized from within. Nevertheless, to prevent child protection programs from continuing to be perceived as actions that intentionally devalue other ways of living—as also was the case during colonialism—­and only serve the valorization of t­hose in power, such as development organ­izations, child protection practice should promote what Ngugi wa Thiong’o described well in an interview from 2017: “Knowledge all the time starts from ­here where I am to out ­there . . . ​but colonialism made it look as if knowledge begins out ­there and comes back to us ­here.” A decolonization of current forms of child protection that is more inclusive of notions of modernity may thus allow for more balanced and less hegemonic interventions. In the next chapter I link the main arguments of the book to c ­ hildren’s ideas about the ­future as being “the nation of tomorrow” and relate the concept of protection to e ­ arlier discussions of re­spect (heshima).

7 Beyond Well-­Being, ­ toward ­Children

Mtoto umleavyo

As you raise a child

ndiyo hivyo akuavyo

So they become

Wazazi tusiende ovyo

Parents let’s not go astray

taifa litapotea.

Or the nation w ­ ill be lost.

Watoto ni zao letu ­Children are our crop ndio tegemeo letu

We depend on them

Ambalo taifa letu

Our nation

Kesho linategemea.

Tomorrow, depends on them.

As thirteen-­year-­old Nadra makes clear in her poem, the well-­being of every­one in society, both ­children and adults, depends on how ­children are treated ­today. ­A fter exploring and drawing some conclusions about hierarchies of adult’s child protection knowledge in the previous chapter, this chapter does the same for ­children’s knowledge and opinions. I turn to one of the central themes that recurred throughout the c ­ hildren’s accounts—­the “nation of tomorrow” (taifa la kesho)—to view protection practices on the broadest level as ultimately affecting c ­ hildren’s ­f utures and general well-­being in society. As Saba Mahmood has made clear, feminism’s liberatory goals “should be rethought in light of the fact that the desire for freedom and liberation is a historically situated desire whose motivational force cannot be assumed a priori” (2001, 223). Similarly, child protection interventions should be re­imagined by interrogating “the conceptual relationship between the body, self, and moral agency as constituted in dif­fer­ ent cultural and po­liti­cal locations,” instead of holding onto “one par­tic­u­lar model to be axiomatic as is often the case in progressivist narratives” (223). Hence, rethinking child protection through a feminist lens requires recognizing the kind of ­f utures, or “the nation of tomorrow,” as envisioned in the archipelago by its youn­gest citizens. 17 7

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IN THIS CH A PTER I

consider the changes that child protection programs have

effected in Zanzibar’s moral landscape by returning to the roles of manners ­ hildren’s lives (see chapter 2) and (adabu), re­spect (heshima), and empathy in c the qualities of protection that are closely related to health and well-­being (see chapter 3). H ­ ere I draw out the links between them by recalling c ­ hildren’s and adults’ conceptualizations of protection. Returning to ­children’s ideas helps fully reconstruct the ethical landscape in which questions of chastisement and protection exist in Zanzibar. As a starting point for ­these final considerations, I place the concept of protection back into the earliest discussions of re­spect, enabling us to view pro­cesses of punishment and protection in relation to another essential quality to life in Zanzibar. By considering ­children’s ideas about the ­future, I also view re­spect on a broader societal level and in close connection to Islamic practice. As Mahmood also put it well, to be able to judge “in a morally and po­liti­ cally informed way, [with] even t­ hose practices we consider objectionable”—­like the continuing use of corporal punishment and objections to programs that try to ban it—we must consider “the desires, motivations, commitments, and aspirations of the ­people to whom ­these practices are impor­tant” (2001, 225). Zanzibari ­children and adults understand protection in multiple ways but always primarily in relation to concepts of adabu and heshima. I build on ­these ideas to suggest how to rethink protection approaches that aim to reduce physical chas­ eople’s tisement but that also contest adabu and heshima as they relate to young p conception of the ­f uture.

Building the “Nation of Tomorrow” In Nadra’s poem, ­children play a critical role for an imaginary “nation of tomorrow.” The character of the f­ uture nation w ­ ill largely depend on how ­children are treated by adults. “How ­people function and relate to ­others, as much as what they have, or how they report their well-­being at a single moment in time” (Camfield, Streuli, and Woodhead 2009, 98) is part of the concept of well-­being, which I turn to in this discussion. Considering the question of how we might more effectively protect ­children, I take as a starting point Bourdillon and Myers’s suggestion to “replace the concept of ‘protection’ with the idea of promoting well-­ being and development, drawing on assets that may inhere in the situation” (2012b, 619). Protection programs should adopt h ­ uman development and capability approaches that improve the quality of life (Sen 1999; Nussbaum 2011). ­Because c ­ hildren depend on o ­ thers for their well-­being, their relationships need to be taken seriously in efforts to guarantee their protection and general well-­ being in Zanzibar. To avoid too narrow conceptions of protection, as Bourdillon



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and Myers put it (2012b, 613), I turn to the meta­phor of ­children being the “nation of tomorrow.” Drawing on the image of the nation and its interrelation with young ­people allows us to understand child protection as a discussion about ­children’s ­f utures, which they should participate in creating. Thinking about the effects of corporal punishment and child protection in terms of ­children’s own ­f utures and their well-­being, which in Zanzibar involves becoming responsible, respectful, well-­mannered, pious ­people, prevents us from having narrow conceptualizations of child protection that victimize c ­ hildren and view them as lacking agency in larger po­liti­cal contexts. As explored in depth in chapter 2, the multiple facets of “child well-­being” and the idea’s breadth and heterogeneity are “illustrated in h ­ uman rights treaties” (Ben-­A rieh et al. 2014, 1) like the CRC. The rights enshrined t­ here are considered to create “well-­being or opportunities for well-­being, referring to the quality of ­children’s lives eco­nom­ically and emotionally” (1) and ­were also reflected in the vari­ous demands and views my young research participants voiced. Well-­being is also conceptually related to health (Morrow and Boyden 2014). Whereas “health,” in its broadest sense, describes a state of “complete physical, ­mental and social well-­being, and not the mere absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO 1948 [1946]), “care” can be understood as looking a ­ fter ­people with the aim of assuring their well-­being in society. I therefore support critiques of the tendency of aid organ­izations to approach child protection as a program or policy area that is separate from health or education and other related fields. Such an isolated response to one par­tic­u­lar “ill”—­the application of “single-­issue approaches”—­tends to create new challenges for young ­people in dif­fer­ent areas of their lives (Bourdillon and Myers 2012b, 614). Understanding what well-­being means to c ­ hildren in Zanzibar first, and then what it does to facilitate nation-­ building and foster empathy, ­w ill generate protection aspirations on the broadest level. Traditionally parents and “experts” decide what is in c ­hildren’s best interests, and c ­ hildren’s voices are largely absent from debates about how harm is constituted (Montgomery 2015, 12). However, a more accurate understanding of ­children’s well-­being would take into account their living conditions and their own mea­sures by which they conceive of their well-­being. Young ­people’s “perceptions, evaluations, and aspirations regarding their own lives—­including ­children’s subjective well-­being,” and “perceptions, evaluations, and aspirations of other relevant social agents (stakeholders) about ­children’s lives and conditions of living” (Ben Arieh et  al. 2014, 16)—­need to inform each other and the conceptualization and reconsideration of child protection policy and practice. Prioritizing ­children’s perceptions in discourses and practices that concern them first, and then contrasting them with the views of adults who play central roles in their lives—­parents, teachers, religious

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leaders, and development workers—­enable such a multilevel reflection on a rarely contested field of action. IN ONE OF THE M AN Y R ESE A RCH ACTI V ITIES

I conducted with the sixty c ­ hildren

who participated in this research, I asked them what messages they would have for Zanzibari parents or the president, if they w ­ ere given the opportunity to address them. Their varied responses reflect the breadth of their most fundamental aspirations of d ­ oing well in society—of their well-­being as the “nation of tomorrow.” They repeatedly wished that parental and community care to assure their f­uture well-­being would be guaranteed and emphasized parents and guardians as protective forces in their lives: Parents should take care of the ­children (muwatunze) and care for them (muwajali) ­because they are the nation of tomorrow (taifa la kesho). (girl, age fourteen) Education is impor­tant and can help me in my life. Parents and teachers are impor­tant ­people in society. They make a g ­ reat contribution (mchango mkubwa) in our everyday lives (maisha ya kila siku) and in our f­ uture (mai­ sha ya baadae). (boy, age fifteen) We would like to tell the parents to love (muwapende) and care for (muwa­ jali) ­children, and to value them (muwathamini) ­because they are the nation of tomorrow (taifa la kesho). (girl, age thirteen)

The c ­ hildren saw parents and teachers as impor­tant agents of care in their lives and said that they valued and respected them—­thus making clear the positive potential of placing an increased focus on adults in child protection programs both inside and outside of schools. Involving parents more fully would avoid both a disconnect between protection realities in homes and educational spaces and approaching adults solely as perpetrators of child harm. Furthermore, ­children wanted to draw their parents’ attention to the importance of preventing vio­lence and poverty, reflecting the intersection of emotional and economic well-­being that applies to ­children in Zanzibar as elsewhere: My parents should raise me well (wanilee vizuri), should neither make me suffer a lot (wasinitese sana), nor abuse me (wasininyanyase). This is impor­ tant in my life. (boy, age twelve) I would like to tell the president that we students have prob­lems at madrasa. Our trousers get dirty (zinachafuka) ­because of the bad state of the madrasa. We d ­ on’t have desks and I would like it if you could get us some. ­A fter all, we are the nation of tomorrow” (taifa la kesho). (boy, age thirteen)



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Their awareness that they represented the next generation went along with their sense of unfulfilled entitlement to a better pre­sent: both supported young ­people’s understanding of themselves as a part of a community in which they have active roles to play despite their unequal treatment. Similarly impor­tant ­were ­children’s demands for upholding Islamic morality and norms through adequate education and socialization: My message to all parents is that they ­shall educate their ­children in a religious and worldly manner (masomo ya dini na dunia) and raise them well, as the Prophet Muhammad (s.w.) has guided us. (boy, age fifteen)

The inseparability of religious and worldly education and the related spaces and discourses that define young Zanzibari’s realities, again, point to the need to take the interwovenness of religious and secular socialization seriously in understanding and adequately responding to the worlds in which Zanzibari ­children live. Fi­nally, their messages revolved around assuring their health and general well-­being: I would tell the president to help ­children ­because they have impor­tant needs (mahitaji muhimu). Above all, they are the nation of tomorrow (taifa la kesho) which means they should be close to their leaders” (viongozi wao). (boy, age seventeen)

This demand to bridge a perceived disconnect between young p ­ eople and “their leaders” reflects, once again, how ­children and young ­people yearn to be taken seriously as knowledgeable p ­ eople regarding m ­ atters that concern them. The variety of t­ hings they identified as impor­tant for their well-­being in society repeatedly cast ­children as the “nation of tomorrow” and hence as an integrated part of Zanzibari society, being prepared to lead the archipelago in the ­f uture. It suggests that Zanzibari ­children are not disorderly, but in fact seek to maintain the social order by assuring they are treated in ways that allow them to uphold it. Far from being unruly, they have a clear sense of order and justice that is not actually at variance from adults’ views but in fact is continuous with their expectations. ­Children ask that adults themselves be rule governed and conform to the very ideals of re­spect and empathy that they seek to impose on ­children.

Child Protection and Relational Empathy In the same way that ­children care about other ­children, they demand adults to do the same. A photo­graph taken by a boy (no age given) of a child standing amidst garbage scattered across the ground (see figure 7.1) depicts empathy and reflects an understanding of protection as parental responsibility and care, as well as

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FIGUR E 7.1  ​“This photo explains the life of c ­ hildren who wander around in the

neighbourhood. They are hungry and have nowhere to live. We should take care of them (tuwajali) ­because c ­ hildren are the nation of tomorrow (taifa la kesho). Let’s not let them go astray, while their peers are being educated. Roaming around, they might get diseases.” Photo by a boy, age unknown.

protection from disease and hence assurance of health. The young photographer explains the need to care for ­children and to assure their emotional and physical well-­being, using the meta­phor of ­children being the “nation of tomorrow.” Witnessing o ­ thers’ pain, particularly of c ­ hildren, demands and creates empathy and compassion (Ahmed 2004). Empathy “involves having the feelings of another (involuntarily) aroused in ourselves, as when we see another person in pain” (Slote 2010, 15): it is what c ­ hildren have for their peers and what they demand of adults to have for them too. For some Zanzibari adults, such as a local child protection worker told me, this inevitably held true: My sister-­in-­law cares for two of her ­sister’s ­children, Mohammed (2) and Arif (4). One time I asked Arif if he was happy and he started crying. He said, ‘She beats me (ananipiga), I d ­ on’t want to live h ­ ere anymore, I want to go home.” Arif showed me how he hated (anavyomchukia) his aunt and opened up when I asked him. This situation happens to so many ­children. It is hidden in their heart, but they usually d ­ on’t get the chance to talk about it. So, what c ­ hildren learn is, “when I’m g ­ oing to be an adult, I w ­ ill treat my ­children the same way ­because that is the way I was treated.” And my in-­law said the same t­ hing when I asked her: “This is the way I was brought up; it is the only way I know how to raise a child.”



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The protection worker’s encounter with Arif and the empathy he felt reflected on child protection on an emotional level. Arif disliked how he was treated by his aunt. When he was given the opportunity to speak, he said so and was clear about why. His aunt said she treats him as she was treated, ­because she knows no dif­fer­ent way of discipline. This allows us to remember what ­children have been saying all along: they want to be treated well and respectfully, but their power to make t­ hese demands is constrained, b ­ ecause the social demands they must fulfill do not sufficiently allow such contestation. This aligns with what Mark Fagiano (2019) describes in his conceptual framework as “relational empathy.” For Fagiano, the value of a notion of empathy lies precisely in what such a concept can do—­“the manner in which, for example, it shapes habits, decreases the suffering of sentient beings or contributes to the flourishing of our lives” (168f). What the concept can do in the context of child protection becomes clear by regarding its parts. Fagiano defines a pluralistic notion of empathy as consisting of three overlapping relations: “feeling into,” “feeling with,” and “feeling for.” Fagiano’s approach offers a helpful tool to summarize and think through Zanzibari c ­ hildren’s and adults’ experiences and understandings of protection and punishment. As the young ­people in Zanzibar and the adults I spoke to all emphasize, child protection discourse and practice would benefit from such a threefold understanding. This would involve an increased focus on (1) feeling into another person’s thoughts—­for example, adult’s conceptions of young p ­ eople’s lived realities; (2) feeling with another person in terms of being united or connected by means of adopting another person’s feelings or perspective—­such as the young p ­ eople frequently did in regard to each other; and (3) feeling for another person “by caring for them and acting primarily for their benefit” (167)—in direct relation to what this would imply for child protection prac­ti­tion­ers. This idea of empathy resonates with Nancy Scheper-­Hughes’s conceptualization of “the primacy of the ethical”: “a combination of pre-­cultural compassion, empathic love, and care” (1995, 418). She argues that this quality has long been considered necessary for engaged anthropology and is similarly relevant to care and protection practice. ­Children’s very clear ideas about re­spect and empathy, which they must have ­toward ­others but equally should expect in return—so they can fully be able to become the nation of tomorrow they consider themselves to be a part of—­suggests the relevance of ­these notions for child protection theoreticians and prac­ti­tion­ers. One of the reasons for the rejection of child protection programs is the fear that they ­w ill prevent c ­ hildren from becoming full social persons—­which is attained by learning manners and moral­ ill be part of ity (adabu) through discipline and chastisement (adhabu)—­who w the nation of tomorrow. For the most part, therefore, ­children are mainly docile and accepting of being hit or even of the injustices of a child protection system that, for example, makes them late for school b ­ ecause of meetings or c ­ auses them

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financial difficulties through the alternatives to corporal punishment it introduces. Nevertheless, ­because ­children clearly identify central values to Zanzibari culture, largely in Muslim moral be­hav­ior, and are naturally inclined to be cooperative to fulfill them—­and hence to contribute to reinforcing the social order and being part of the nation of tomorrow—­adults need not fear eliciting ­children’s cooperation and eventually do not need to physically instill order in them. ­Because “diagnostic categories are the starting points or building blocks for constructing therapies” (Das 2015b, 29; Davis 2000), a community starting point that takes c ­ hildren’s ideas seriously is necessary to address child chastisement and to improve child protection knowledge and practice in Zanzibar (Twum-­ Danso Imoh 2016). Just as speaking of illness must include “the patient’s judgments about how best to cope with the distress and with the practical prob­lems in daily living it creates” (Kleinman 1988, 4), so my interlocutors’ accounts identify re­spect and empathy as fundamental to dealing with both physical chastisement and the protection from it. Above all, Zanzibari ­ children want to be respected and empathized with in the same way that adults request from them. They want to be guaranteed parental and community care, prevented from experiencing poverty and vio­lence, educated in ways that align with Islamic morality and norms, and cared for in ways that safeguard their health and general well-­being. To fulfill their requests, I propose reimagining child protection practice by “equally integrating other ways of thinking” (Davis 2012, 505) that originate in Zanzibar, where they may facilitate dialogue, eliminate potential conflicts, and create new relationships to allow Zanzibaris to view the “therapy” that is applied to a “societal ill,” which corporal punishment is considered to be, through the lens of c ­ hildren’s rights.

Conclusion In this chapter I drew on ­children’s accounts of themselves as part of a nation of tomorrow and how ­these aspirations must be achieved for all of Zanzibar’s citizens—­including young ­people—if they are to do well. ­These suggestions in the form of ­children’s fictitious messages to their parents or to the president or, put differently, their direct accounts of speaking their truth to power, showed clearly how young ­people demand the same re­spect and empathy from adults that they are required to give themselves. I then applied Fagiano’s concept of relational empathy to map out how child protection needs to be re­imagined in po­liti­cal and emotional terms to better serve t­ hose it intends to help. In the concluding chapter, I draw together the main arguments of the book and end by proposing four essential focus areas for child protection policy innovation.

 Conclusion

This book is a collection of perspectives on “the relationships between policy discourse and field practice” (Mosse 2005, 2) in the context of child protection interventions in Zanzibar examined through an anthropological lens. It has shown that child protection is a complex and contextually specific phenomenon and a “slippery concept” (Montgomery 2015, 14) entangled in local and global ecologies of care, networks of authority, and universal discourses of rights. In this concluding chapter, I return to the aim of my research to contribute to both the anthropology of childhood and young ­people and the related policy field of child protection. I draw together the threads of knowledge I spun throughout this book: ethics/morality, childhood, socialization, discursive power, the body, vio­lence, discipline, participation, gender, Islam, law, and “modernities.” Each story I retold intentionally reflected the often confusing and multilayered real­ ity of childhood and child protection in Zanzibar as viewed from all relevant a ­ ngles. In an effort to understand why and how well-­intended child protection programs face opposition for, usually inadvertently, decontextualizing and disrupting c ­ hildren’s lives (Bourdillon and Myers 2012a: 441), I considered how international laws to protect c ­ hildren align with the norms and customs of Zanzibari society. I explored c ­ hildren’s worldviews of protection and personhood in schools; how ­these perceptions vary between ­children and according to gender and age; how concepts of childhood, protection, and personhood are embedded in c ­ hildren’s and adults’ social relations; and the role of the body within them. I argued that child protection interventions against corporal punishment are contested, b ­ ecause they overlook the contexts in which corporal punishment makes sense, contributes to ­children’s full achievement of social personhood and might even be considered a protection itself. ­B ecause p ­ eople commonly

1 85

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experience development “not within idealized states but in the spaces between categories” (Crewe and Axelby 2013, 214), the moments of tension when dif­fer­ ent worldviews crossed reflected t­ hose intersections of child protection theory and real­ity that deserve par­tic­u­lar attention. Throughout the chapters I moved from a focus on c ­ hildren and how childhood is formed in Zanzibar, to the links between ­children and adults in everyday child protection real­ity, to the adult-­centric spheres of knowledge production. This threefold approach brought to the fore va­ri­e­ties of authority that operate in the realm of child protection, vari­ous global discourses of rights and laws, and local ecologies of care that have been missing from universalized policy approaches to protection. I refrained from making quick judgments but eventually came to side with the c ­ hildren I worked with. By contextualizing some of their experiences and the moral issues they encounter in the context of child protection interventions, my findings contribute to knowledge about childhood discipline, chastisement, and protection by making plain how power authorizes and deauthorizes knowledge that defines how ­children o ­ ught to be protected. Universalized discourses of protection, personhood, and childhood tend to overrule Zanzibari ­children’s and adults’ ideas about ­these themes and make their views appear as of lesser value or relevance. ­B ecause the priority given to dif­fer­ent child protection discourses in fact determines how the policy field of child protection turns into a system of domination, the Zanzibari Islamic and “cultural” discourses should become more power­f ul venues to ­counter this hegemony (Foucault 1981). I drew on ­children’s creative productions to enrich and challenge globalized adult discourses, supporting my analy­sis of the moral hierarchies that structure protection knowledge. ­Children’s views on their own lives are often at the bottom of the hierarchy in discussions about their lives and the pro­cesses that structure them. This hierarchy may only be flattened by using a decolonial way of thinking and taking seriously ­children’s and adults’ ideas about what being young, growing up, being well mannered, and being safe and protected mean. Furthermore, this rethinking should be led by actors within Zanzibari society itself instead of attempted to be achieved by “outsiders.” ­Children’s conceptualizations of the notions of vio­ lence, discipline, and participation, in combination with statistics and practical observations, need to be taken seriously as starting points for reconsidering current protection approaches. Increasingly assuring that c ­ hildren’s own assessments of the difficulties they face are taken into account may contribute to more robust approaches to keeping c ­ hildren safe. W ITHOUT A DOUBT,

many of the c ­ hildren I worked with or learned about expe-

rience forms of harsh corporal punishment that affect their well-­being beyond acceptable limits. At no point did I intend to justify the abuse ­children are exposed to in and outside of schools. However, as does any observer of h ­ uman

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rights abuses, I frequently confronted the moral dilemma of ­whether my actions would help or hurt the sufferers (Farmer 2003, 226). I came to believe that witnessing and recording c ­ hildren’s suffering are not a kind of “perverse cynicism” but can in fact serve “as a tool for critical reflection and for ­human liberation” (Scheper-­Hughes 1995, 418). Social reform in Zanzibar should thus be influenced by two princi­ples that Ali Mazrui recommended for Africa in general: the imperatives of “looking inwards t­ owards ancestry” and “looking outward t­ owards the wider humanity” (1986, 21). Therefore, understanding physical chastisement and its moral agenda in the context of Zanzibari society, rather than in isolation, allows us to understand why c ­ hildren continue to be hit in Zanzibari schools and homes and why programs that aim to interfere with that face opposition. Contextualizing pro­cesses of chastisement and protection teased out the motivations and intentions of ­those who punish and protect and showed that most Zanzibari teachers and parents do not hit c ­ hildren to inflict vio­lence on them, but to help them achieve social personhood and hence to prepare the ground for their ­f uture lives. I conclude that child protection development actors’ moral reactions to corporal punishment are likely to continue causing prob­lems if they fail to recognize that Zanzibari teachers and parents think they are protecting ­children through mea­sured physical chastisement, and therefore that caning is sometimes good for their ­children. Nevertheless, this should not imply inaction, because the line between acceptable and excessive corporal punishment is ­ often crossed, eventually making its application unacceptable. What w ­ ill happen to ­those ­children who are harmed and continue to be harmed, and what ­w ill happen to the adults who continue to harm ­children and face no consequences? The way forward in child protection interventions in Zanzibar requires negotiation, instead of rules for and punishment of adults only. Adults should not be exclusively depicted as perpetrators of harm through child protection programs, but taken seriously in their ambitions to produce good citizens—­just on less potentially harmful terms. By identifying and building on Zanzibari adults’ positive intentions to raise c ­ hildren well and safely, the accusatory manner through which protection programs operate against adults’ child-­rearing practices may be modified and replaced with a more positive and productive approach. At the same time, bound­aries between acceptable and nonacceptable discipline need to be negotiated, and their overstepping held to account. As spelled out in chapter 6, ­these conversations about how ­children are to be better protected and corporal punishment cases are to be dealt with need to take place within the Zanzibari child protection community, involving young ­people themselves, child protection prac­ti­tion­ers or implementers, government staff, and teachers and parents. Furthermore, all adults—­teachers, parents, and both foreign and local aid and government workers—­a re largely ignoring c ­ hildren’s views and therefore

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their right to participation. In this context, a Western versus non-­ Western polarity—as frequently used by adults—is not accurate, ­because no one is taking Zanzibari c ­ hildren’s views seriously enough. Although adults consider “Zanzibari versus foreigner” the most salient distinction, c ­ hildren’s accounts showed that the more general one—­“child versus adult”—is more in­ter­est­ing to them. My conclusions and recommendations stem from the medical anthropology approach that sees ­children as diagnosticians. In a way that is continuous with what c ­ hildren and adults have said, I propose four essential focus areas for innovation: assuring health and well-­being, guaranteeing parental and community care, preventing vio­lence and poverty, and upholding Islamic morality and norms. To genuinely “listen to the sick and abused and to t­ hose most likely to have their rights v ­ iolated” (Farmer 2003, 239), I return to my child and adult interlocutors’ priorities regarding Zanzibari ­children’s safety and protection to draw conclusions to achieve the pos­si­ble f­ uture—or the nation of tomorrow.

Practical Implications and Tentative Recommendations for Child Protection Policy Above all, my exploration proved the need for both Zanzibari c ­ hildren and adults to gain more control over the child protection movement and respective interventions taking place on their islands. Based on my theoretical conclusions, I suggest recommendations for child protection policy and practice that align with the identified need for the re­distribution of power and control. In the first place, they are addressed to Zanzibaris who work in the field of child protection, for it is they who should be in charge of a system that assures their ­children’s safety and general well-­being. Although they are already involved to some extent in ­these pro­cesses, Zanzibaris should increasingly drive and facilitate child protection interventions on their islands based on their developing authenticating modes of understanding child protection at the center of redirecting pro­cesses. For policy models like Save the ­Children’s Positive Discipline program to “work,” they need to be “translated into the dif­fer­ent logic of the intentions, goals, and ambitions of the many ­people and institutions they bring together” (Mosse 2005, 232). Sensitive translations of child protection that include local interests in revision pro­cesses may better ­people’s lives without questioning the fundamental legitimacy of their child-­rearing practices. Even if needs-­based program approaches do not align directly with priorities on the global agenda of child rights and protection movements, local needs and both Zanzibari c ­ hildren’s and adults’ priorities must be taken seriously and responded to by “donors and their power­f ul constituencies” (Maternowska 2006, 178; Cheney 2011). Making ­children’s needs central to development debates and policies and “integrating child protection concerns around sources of risk and protection”

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can help prevent child protection from being tasked with every­thing and as a consequence achieving nothing (Pells 2012, 572). Shifting the focus of Zanzibar’s current child protection system from a supply side to a demand side that responds to the attitudes, be­hav­iors, and practices of c ­ hildren in relation to their own protection w ­ ill be impor­tant for improving protection practice and ­children’s well-­ being (Rutherford and Bachay 2017, 119). This shift may also help increase the ac­cep­tance and collaboration with national institutions’ protection ser­v ices, which have so far been slow to improve. To cater to this demand side, we should not limit our conception of ­children’s rights to ­legal codes, ­because ­doing so would decrease “both ­children’s entitlements and our understanding of ­children’s subjectivity” (Nieuwenhuys 2008, 8) in how childhood and child protection are socially constructed. Listening closely to young ­people’s views on their own protection and avoiding an essentialist notion of culture and childhood by foregrounding their subjectivity are the only ways in which “the interpretation of illness meanings can also contribute to the provision of more effective care” (Kleinman 1988, 9) and, in the context of Zanzibar, result in more effective child protection. More sensible and inclusive approaches to child protection in Zanzibar and other Muslim-­ majority settings should focus on the four areas addressed in the following subsections.

Guaranteeing Parental and Community Care Child protection activities in Zanzibar should pay more attention to the contexts in which c ­ hildren live, particularly their ­family life, and address protection within the community context. B ­ ecause c ­ hildren’s protection is inherently relational and situational, it ­w ill always, to some extent, resist universalization and standardization (Bourdillon and Myers 2012b, 616). Nevertheless, if protection actors take communities’ and families’ definitions of c ­ hildren’s well-­being and development as starting points, they ­w ill be less likely to involuntarily contest vernacular notions that are considered essential for community life. Enhancing existing community efforts to protect ­children, instead of introducing entirely new strategies that end up competing with or intending to replace them, may limit objections with interventions. Working more closely with parents, both ­mothers and f­ athers, could shift conceptualizations of child protection as a girls’ ­matter only to also include a focus on boys. Rethinking Zanzibari child protection through an “ethics of care” (Lonne et al. 2016) involves recognizing the importance of a relational approach to child protection that works more with ­fathers and men. Focusing on relationships and re­spect as core components for working with ­children and families in Zanzibar, and placing t­ hese princi­ples alongside the need to understand and value Zanzibari culture, should improve and assure child safety and well-­being (Lonne et al. 2008).

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Preventing Vio­lence and Poverty Child protection in Zanzibar should be considered in a broad political-­economic context, and interventions should address the sociocultural dimensions of young ­people’s lives, as well as the ­factors through which poverty and marginality are reproduced (Hart 2008, 4; Hart 2015, 51). It should explore “systemic ­causes of abuse, neglect, and exploitation of c ­ hildren, and vio­lence against them” (Nelems and Currie 2012, 612). Vio­lence should be targeted as a structural phenomenon closely intertwined with poverty, instead of addressing corporal punishment separately and thereby neglecting more critical prob­ lems ­ children may face (Boyden, Pankhurst, and Tafere 2012, 520). Such single-­issue approaches are insufficient to address the “systemic prob­lems that c ­ hildren face” (Wessells et al. 2013, 134) in Zanzibar and other places. Addressing wider social and po­liti­cal issues may enable a move beyond individualized child protection systems ­toward a public health approach, recognizing rights, social harms, and structural inequalities (Parton 2014; Adams 2013, 535). Child protection ser­vices usually intervene ­after ­children have already been harmed. They may become more effective through shifting from protection concepts as a response mechanism to vio­lence to vio­lence prevention itself.1 ­Because vio­lence prevention is both a health m ­ atter and a po­liti­cal issue, child protection programs could learn from public health approaches that, grounded in epidemiology, study “how a disease is distributed in populations and f­ actors that increase or reduce the risk of developing it” (O’Donnell 2015, 111). Similarly to what has long been recognized in the area of communicable disease—­“that intervening only once t­ here has been an outbreak of a disease”—­the current focus of child protection interventions in Zanzibar t­ oward prevention instead of response only may be an effective means to reduce abuse. ­Doing so would improve connections between ­children’s situations and t­ hose of their families and communities, to which c ­ hildren’s risk and protective f­ actors are inevitably related.

Upholding Islamic Morality, Empathy, and Re­spect Child protection programs, particularly in Muslim-­majority settings like Zanzibar, should increasingly attend to the “neglected areas of well-­being sometimes referred to as ‘spiritual’ ” (Bourdillon 2014, 497). Understanding protection through an ethics of well-­being that integrates a “conception of what it is to be ­human” and emphasizes dignity (Freeman 2010, 251) may help strengthen Zanzibari ideas around personhood acquisition. In turn, this may decrease the rejection of protective interventions for being perceived as disturbing young ­people’s spiritual and moral being and becoming. Religious ideas, such as how ­children are made into “good” Muslims in Zanzibar—­centrally based on the

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Islamic concept of adabu, which the translation of the name of Save the C ­ hildren’s Positive Discipline program (adabu mbadala) suggested it is replacing—­intersect with the moral dynamics of development work. Local understandings of living a pious life and shaping a young person into a pious adult should therefore be understood “as informing all areas of life, including the planning, implementation and reception of development proj­ ects” (Bornstein 2005, 2f). Engaging closely with Zanzibari “­children’s positive emotions and [paying attention] to be­hav­ior and values that might be classified as spiritual” (Bourdillon 2014, 502), and that in Zanzibar may be seen as Islamic, may thus underline the potential of protective approaches that are inherent in “Muslim modernities.” Vernacular and religious ideas about being young and growing up in Zanzibar are largely conceptualized in terms of health and spirituality. Engaging more directly with t­ hese areas may contribute to protection programs being received more willingly and no longer perceived as being guided by exclusively universalized and secular ideas of well-­being. B ­ ecause the associated cultural dimensions of religion “are impor­tant social f­ actors which influence governance, social practices and beliefs around childbearing, rearing, well-­being and protection” (Hutchinson et al. 2015, 396), they have power to shape child protection practice in Zanzibar and should be considered in program development. Interventions to protect c ­ hildren in Zanzibar should draw on the productivity of “the development of positive emotions, responsibility, and connectedness” and accept moral and spiritual development as fundamental to ­humans as social beings (Scales et al. 2013: 501). A focus on religion shows how c ­ hildren’s well-­being and c ­ hildren’s rights do not naturally align but may oppose each other through certain ­legal frameworks (Tisdall 2015). Recognizing that an exclusive reliance on Western-­based models interferes with the credibility and trust that enable the effectiveness of interventions in Muslim communities (Hutchinson et al. 2015, 395) may open up new space for the genuine improvement of protection practice. Targeting the “significant gap in how Islamic knowledge and princi­ples are practically applied to child protection policy and practice” may help build a “knowledge base that can be practiced in Islamic communities” (395) like Zanzibar. This may entail ­going beyond tokenistic involvement of religious authorities and increasing specialist training in child protection for madrasa teachers too. Conversely, non-­ Muslim child protection development workers “should receive training about Islamic teachings” to ensure their sufficient knowledge of religious laws and texts related to c ­ hildren (403). Instead of ignoring them, child protection programs should draw on “existing organic child protection mechanisms in Islamic communities” (404), such as the conflict-­mediating authority of sheikhs and their capacity to promote moderate child-­rearing and protection practices in religious speeches (mawaidha) in their community mosques. Other­wise mistrust

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of ­people who work with Western-­based organ­izations ­w ill remain a “significant barrier to engaging with community-­based mechanisms in Islamic contexts” (Hutchinson et al. 2015, 405). In impoverished contexts like Zanzibar, religion itself is one of the preventive and protective ­factors that bring c ­ hildren emotional and social benefits and increase community belonging (O’Leary, Hutchinson, and Squire 2015, 719). Including such protective aspects in protection programs may help increase health and well-­being outcomes by encouraging “ ‘hopeful thinking’ ” (719). Inviting traditional and religious healers into the child protection pro­cess could be a meaningful and progressive step that would signify to Zanzibaris involved in protection programs that all of their needs, ­whether physical or metaphysical in nature and beyond a biomedical understanding, are acknowledged to ­matter in pro­cesses of child care and protection (Maternowska 2006). Spirituality and empathy are closely intertwined. B ­ ecause “empathy is absolutely foundational to successful ­human relationships” and “becomes the experience and expression of spirituality” (de Souza 2014, 48), increased attention to Muslim ideas about being young, growing up, and being safe may deepen Zanzibari adults’ sensitivity ­toward c ­ hildren’s suffering. Instead of categorizing Zanzibari c ­ hildren’s experiences into what can be mea­sured,2 such as risk or resilience, work with and for ­children in the field of care and protection should aim to make “our socie­ties more just and empathetic” (Bourdillon and Myers 2012b, 619). “Empathic support, based on relationships, which places ‘care’ rather than ‘risk’ at the heart of intervention” (Daniel 2015, 128), is necessary in Zanzibar, where the negative and accusatory tone or connotation of protection from adult vio­lence is also rejected for being perceived as undermining parental authority. Empathizing with ­children’s situations, listening to them, and allowing space for contestation in a society where ­children’s silence and obedience may be valued more than their outspokenness, may be a path t­ oward better interventions; the individuals playing defining roles within society—­teachers, parents, and aid workers—­may thereby become more empathetic. More than how adults relate to c ­ hildren and families, ethical practice also concerns “how policies are made and implemented, and ­whether or not this promotes re­spect and justice, and contributes to the creation of a society that cares” (Thompson et al. 2006, 9) is part of any ethical practice. Hence, protection programs in Zanzibar should promote forms of engagement that do not contest what constitutes ­children’s re­spect ­toward ­others but enhances it instead. Increasing a focus on empathy, care, re­spect, and relationship-­based ethics may therefore not only shape protection prac­ti­tion­ers’ approaches to the ­children they aim to support; empathy must also increase for the adults involved in programs and their perceived strug­gles to uphold certain standards they consider necessary for their c ­ hildren’s well-­being.

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Protecting C ­ hildren’s Health and Well-­Being Fi­nally, if health is a “global public good” (Das 2015b, 181), child well-­being—­ children’s health and the care for them—­becomes one as well, as international organ­izations play major roles in its definition. And if public health implies a government’s duty to look ­after its citizens’ health (Marsland and Prince 2014, 1), child protection, too, is a m ­ atter of health and governance. To create more ethical paths to protecting ­children, well-­being should be understood as more than health alone and instead on a broader societal level, thereby guaranteeing that protection interventions do not disrupt but instead improve young p ­ eople’s experiences in educational settings. To better reflect the relationship between childhood and protection in Zanzibar, a critical global health and medical anthropological approach needs to deal with child maltreatment, understand well-­being, and integrate health and care thinking into protection program planning (Korbin and Krugman 2014). The right to bodily integrity and a healthy body can only be realized when pain is not inflicted on c ­ hildren’s bodies, and they are protected from physical chastisement. That “a ‘health a ­ ngle’ can promote a broader ­human rights agenda in unique ways” (Farmer 2003, 234) also holds true for guaranteeing ­children’s right to protection. The esteem in which public health and medicine are held affords unique openings, and therefore “the health part of the formula” (234) may contribute to the child rights movement in Zanzibar. Although the fields of social science or c ­ hildren’s rights are more openly value-­laden and directly imply moral judgments, medical or public health frameworks may provoke less opposition for being primarily associated with technical knowledge regarding treatment, rather than with value impositions as to what well-­being should constitute. It is not sufficient to understand the notion of child protection—­t ypically a policy-­defined effort to respond to child abuse and neglect—as a specific cure to “treat” physical chastisement (Fay 2019b, 1). Making healing and health “the symbolic core” of the child protection agenda in Zanzibar may succeed by tapping “into something truly universal—­concern for the sick” (238f). Overall, protection must go beyond “protection from par­tic­ u­lar risks and take in protection of opportunities” (Bourdillon 2014: 497) to better guarantee child well-­being and for Zanzibari diverse ­children to flourish in their communities.

Child Protection and the ­Future: Acting and Understanding Knowledge and views about child protection intervention in Zanzibar are inevitably changing, and although t­ here are diverse perceptions, Zanzibari attitudes ­toward child chastisement are changing too. Both external and internal alterations of Muslim-­Zanzibari cultural identity raise fears of loss of the power to

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produce pious, disciplined, and responsible ­ people. The ­ imagined need to reproduce re­spect, obedience, and submissiveness are clear examples of that. Despite ­people’s fear of losing parts of a Zanzibari identity through influences from the West, Zanzibar ­w ill continue to be affected by the interplay of tourism (largely from the West) and fundamentalist religious influences (largely directed by Saudi Arabia), and the respective discourses that travel with ­people ­will shape ­children’s and adults’ experiences of both protection and chastisement. As Heather Montgomery put it well, the ‘West’ has “a responsibility to act,” but also “a responsibility to understand” (2001: 163). I want to end on this note in regard to both the situation of corporal punishment in Zanzibar, but also by reconsidering the existing responses to it. Only by understanding the forces depicted in this book w ­ ill discussions of child protection and corporal punishment in Zanzibar become more attentive to what m ­ atters most to t­hose concerned by both practices. Childhood, discipline, chastisement, and child protection are, as I have shown, problematic categories, and ­people who campaign against physical chastisement would be wise to treat them as if they are. ULTIM ATELY, THE BEST POS­S I­B LE ­T HING

I could do when I was wrapping up my

time in the field and my work with the young p ­ eople was to heed Montgomery’s call: not only to act and conduct my research as I did but also to act on my responsibility to understand, and thus critically question my own research. To do this, I conducted a small research evaluation (tathmini) proj­ect involving the sixty ­children whose views are central to this book. To understand better how they felt about the dif­fer­ent research activities we collaboratively conducted, I asked for their feedback on the dif­fer­ent tasks in which they had engaged. Their responses revealed several levels of emotional involvement and both the positive and negative challenges they faced while working with me. What my young interlocutors perceived as positive about our research collaboration included the exposure to new tasks, an improved understanding of their own position in society, a heightened awareness of their own safety in schools, being listened to and taken seriously, and working in a friendly environment: It was nice that we ­were given the photos from the research, and that you asked us to explain our photos. (girl, age fifteen) We would like you to increase your time with us. The work you give us like drawing ­etc. usually we ­don’t have ­these t­ hings. (boy, age thirteen) You helped us to understand our rights. (girl, age thirteen) It encouraged us to know that we the c ­ hildren are also part of society (sisi pia ni jamii), and that the government cares about us b ­ ecause they started a research office on ­children. (girl, age twelve)

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It helped us ­children to be ­f ree to say what we want. When you leave, hopefully ­there ­w ill be someone ­else or you should continue. (boy, age fourteen) I liked laughing with you and playing with you. I love you Franziska, ­because you love me. (girl, age fifteen) ­Because we spoke about impor­tant t­ hings like ­children’s safety and their manners and punishment by using t­ hings like cameras. And our leader Franziska (kiongozi wetu) sat with us nicely (kwa uzuri) and worked together with us.” (boy, age fourteen) I like that you collected many dif­fer­ent information about ­children’s safety that are impor­tant for us. (boy, age thirteen)

My young researchers also shared what they experienced as challenging. Their negative evaluations of the methods I used are helpful in understanding the difficulties they faced in the research context. Less positive ele­ments of being involved in a long-­term research proj­ect included incon­ve­nient times for participating in the activities, difficulties in understanding the research topics, a preference for other research tasks, fear of consequences when disclosing sensitive information, unfulfilled (often material) expectations, and my involvement with Islamic religious schools. Their critical views included the following: I ­didn’t like the drawing and writing. (girl, age thirteen) The research brought some difficulties b ­ ecause of the pictures. Many elders ­didn’t want to be photographed by their ­children. (girl, age fourteen) To take photos on ­these themes is not nice. (boy, age fourteen) We ­didn’t see the development (maendeleo) of the research. She called us when we ­were studying, so while our friends ­were learning we missed class. I advise her to call us during our break or during a time when ­people ­don’t study. (boy, age thirteen) Some ­children ­don’t want to tell us about the way they are brought up at home (malezi ya nyumbani kwao) ­because when they tell us they w ­ ill get difficulties (watapata shida). (boy, age ten) Why do you not want to continue the research? Have you lost your motivation? Continue with us; we like seeing you at our school. (boy, age thirteen) Next time you should include ­children with disabilities, like with their eyes, or their mind, so they can also contribute the ­things they face. (girl, age fourteen)

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We would like carpet to sit on (mazuria ya kukalia). We are sad that you are r­ unning away from us (unatukimbia). Come visit us. We depend on your contribution. We love you very much. (girl, age twelve)

I wanted to end this book by taking seriously my young co-­researchers’ voices on this proj­ect. I deemed it necessary to grant them a final say by participating in this evaluation. This was one way I took my responsibility seriously to fully understand what this proj­ect meant to my young interlocutors first and to be a reminder that any repre­sen­ta­tion and translation of a situation ­w ill inevitably remain incomplete.

AC K NOW L­E D GM EN T S

First and foremost, this research was made pos­si­ble by and thus belongs to the ­children and young ­people in Zanzibar who patiently shared with me their time, experiences, and knowledge. This book is as much their work as it is mine, if not more so, and I thank them for their trust. I am equally grateful to ­these young ­people’s parents and teachers at the primary and Qur’anic schools, who generously accepted and supported my regular presence and helped me work ­toward understanding some of the ­things that m ­ atter to them in their ­children’s spaces of learning. In Zanzibar, I thank the Second Vice President’s Office for granting permission for my research. For supporting my research endeavors in vari­ous other capacities, I am grateful to Zanzibar University; the Mufti’s Office; the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training; the Ministry of Empowerment, Social Welfare, Youth, ­Women and ­Children; the Unit for Alternative Forms of Discipline; and the Child Protection Unit—­specifically Nsubuga Haroonah, Sheikh Khamisi Abdulhamid Kahmis, Sheikh Abdallah Hadhar Abdallah, Rahma Ali Khamis, Omar Haji Omar, and Maria Obel Malila. Disputing Discipline is based on eigh­teen months of fieldwork in Zanzibar Town between 2014–2015 and shorter visits of vari­ous lengths between 2016– 2019. The proj­ect started to take shape in 2011–2012 while working with the German Development Cooperation in Germany and Malawi on ­matters of emergency and complementary basic education, as well as with Save the ­Children in Berlin on child protection. I am indebted to Ronja Hölzer, Julia Meixner, and Ken Longden for their encouragement and insights that helped me imagine and realize this research proj­ect. In Zanzibar, tremendous thanks go to every­one at Save the ­Children, specifically Mali Nilsson, Mubarak Maman, and Amanda Procter, who so tirelessly work to improve ­children’s lives and supported this research since day one. For letting me take part in their everyday working realities, I thank Jenifer Tavengerwei, Glory Minja, Amira Salum, Hidaya Haonga, Aida Diop, Amina Kheri, Alice Mushi, Philip Wilkinson, Ramadhan Rashid, Ali Mtwana, Naima Mwinzagu, Haika Harrison, Iddi Mzee, Saghir Mzee, Khadija Yahya, and Najat. At UNICEF I thank Francesca Morandini, Shane Keenan, and Ahmed Rashid for their insights. 1 97

1 9 8

A cknowl­edgments

This book would not have been pos­si­ble without the generous financial support during fieldwork and writing from the German Academic Exchange Ser­ vice, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the British Institute in Eastern Africa, and the Royal Anthropological Institute. During my postdoctoral fellowship with the Research Centre Normative ­Orders at Goethe University Frankfurt, I was able to complete this book, and I thank Rebecca Schmidt, Rainer Forst, Klaus Günther, and Susanne Schröter for their support. I previously published parts of chapters 2 and 4 in “The Meaning of Adabu and Adhabu for the ‘Child Protection’ Discourse in Zanzibar,” SOAS Journal of Post­ graduate Research 9 (2016). Some passages from chapter 4 appeared in a chapter I coauthored with Rachel Burr, “Child Protection across Worlds: Young P ­ eople’s Challenges within and outside of Child Protection Programmes in UK and Zanzibar Schools,” in Global Childhoods beyond the North-­South Divide, edited by Afua Twum-­Danso Imoh et al. (2018). Sections of chapter 6 appeared in “Decolonizing the Child Protection Apparatus: Revisiting Child Rights Governance in Zanzibar,” Childhood 26 (3) (2019). Some of the data from the research evaluation in the conclusion appeared in “The Impact of the School Space on Research Methodology, Child Participation and Safety: Views from ­Children in Zanzibar,” ­Children’s Geographies 16 (4) (2018). Some of my young interlocutors’ images previously appeared in “Looking at and Seeing beyond Young ­People’s Photo­graphs of ‘Child Protection’ in Zanzibar: On C ­ hildren as Diagnosticians of their Own Well-­Being,” Medicine Anthropology Theory 6 (4) (2019). All sections ­were reproduced by permission of the respective publishers. This book also builds heavi­ly on Swahili translation and analy­sis. For supporting my continuous development of proficiency in Swahili and my passion for it, I thank Mwalimu Ramadhan Kututwa and Mwalimu Kijakazi at the State University of Zanzibar, as well as Rainer Vossen, Daniel Ochieng Orwenjo, Nina Tebati, Cla­ris­sa Eck, Alena Rettová, Yussuf Hamad, Sauda Barwani, and Ridder Samson— my Swahili teachers at the University of Frankfurt, at SOAS, and beyond. At the School of Oriental and African Studies, I am grateful to my PhD supervisor Kit Davis for her endless encouragement and guidance. I am in awe of her kindness and wisdom, and I feel blessed that she remains a mentor and a friend. I also thank my second supervisor, Emma Crewe, for her unwavering support and consistent advice on how to think anthropologically. For intellectual guidance during vari­ous stages and on dif­fer­ent parts of this proj­ect, I thank David Mills, Kirrily Pells, Farouk Topan, and ­Virginia Morrow. For continuing exchange and collaboration, I thank Salim Kikeke at BBC Swahili, and the UK Swahili Channel’s Feisal Abasi, Omar Hussein, and Ali Abdallah. At Rutgers University Press, I thank two anonymous reviewers, as well as Jasper Chang, Kimberly Guinta, and Alissa Zarro for their editorial advice and valuable work that has contributed to finalizing this book. At Westchester Publishing Ser­v ices I thank my production



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editor Mary Ribesky. I am also grateful to Gail Naron Chalew for copyediting, and to Amron Gravett for compiling the index. I am grateful for many friendships that ­were born while I was working on this research in Zanzibar, especially with Aida Diop, Nassir Bahan Ali, Salwa Said, Sami Said, Soren Haldrup, Khadija Shariff, Nele Dehnenkamp, Feisal Foum, Hanna Nieber, Nassir Mansour Nassor, Hope Crick, Jenny Bouraima, Caity Sackeroff, Caity Bolton, Andrew Anthony, Ayda Abdallah, Sanaa, Ali, Abdul Hans, and Saleh. Thanks to every­one at Lukmaan, Babu Chai, and Stone Town Café, and to Judi and Masoud in par­tic­u­lar. Ahsanteni to Hafidh and Fatma, and to Yusra, for being my Stone Town home and f­ amily, as well as the families of Bi Shemsu and the late Bibi Hababa. For their companionship since I began this book, I am grateful to Amrisha Uriep, Zoe Goodman, Ezgi Ünsal, Caitlin Procter, Ze Chen, Marta Agosti, Cristiana Strava, and Henry Albery. And for their general presence in my life I thank Mario Schmidt, Sanda Saric, Monika Taseva, Mersid Hamzagic, Fatima Haase, Jussara König, Maxine Shirmohammadi, Daniel Maier, and Malve Jacobsen. My deepest appreciation goes to my f­amily for their unshakable love and support. My ­mother Tina and my ­brother Michael, my grand­father and my grand­ mother, my f­ather, and Molly—in presence and memory, I see you all, and I thank you for seeing me.

G LO S SA RY O F S WA H I L I T E R M S

adabu. ​good be­hav­ior, manners, courtesy adabu mbadala. ​alternative discipline adhabu. ​punishment, chastisement akhlaq. ​Islamic concept of ethics bakora. ​cane, walking stick kubaleghe. ​to reach puberty kuchapa. ​to smack, hit chuo. ​Qur’anic school, also madrasa dawa. ​medicine fimbo. ​a stick; a type of cane hadith. ​teachings and traditions of the Prophet haki. ​right haya. ​shame heshima. ​re­spect kiboko (pl. vi-). ​a type of cane kidunia. ​worldly kidini. ​religious kiislamu. ​Islamic, Muslim kijana. ​youth kisiasa. ​po­liti­cal kosa. ​­mistake

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G lossary of S wahili T erms

madrasa. ​Qur’anic school, also chuo mikwaju. ​a type of cane Mji Mkongwe. ​Stone Town mkunga wa jadi. ​traditional midwife mtoto, (pl. wa-). ​child mtoto mchanga. ​baby mwalimu. ​teacher mzungu (pl. wa-); kizungu. ​‘Western’/Eu­ro­pean person; ‘Western’/ Eu­ro­pean way

magharibi; kimagharibi. ​‘West’; ‘Western’ nidhamu. ​discipline kupiga. ​to hit sharia. ​Islamic law sheha. ​village head shehia. ​ward, smallest administrative area sheikh. ​religious authority tabia. ​character, be­hav­ior udhalilishaji. ​abuse uganga. ​healing, magic ukdi. ​female Islamic Teacher Unguja. ​the main island of the Zanzibar Archipelago ustadh. ​male Islamic Teacher ustaarabu. ​civilization utu. ​humanity, personhood ubinadamu. ​human-­ness

NOT E S

INTRODUCTION 1. In 2015, the Zanzibar ­Children’s Act won the World F ­ uture Council’s ­F uture Policy Award on securing c ­ hildren’s rights and was applauded for its promotion of c ­ hildren’s rights and addressing both child abuse and vio­lence against ­children. According to UNICEF, the legislation is intended to serve as the foundation for the establishment of a comprehensive national child protection system. 2. See https://­endcorporalpunishment​.­org​/­countdown/ (accessed 2/8/2019). 3. Witnessing c ­ hildren’s chastisement, of course, made me want to “take sides,” even though “this flies in the face of the anthropological nonengagement with ­either ethics or politics,” ­because it results in an “ethical” and moral position (Scheper-­Hughes 1995, 419). In my presence, c ­ hildren w ­ ere hit with canes on their arms, legs, or back. During ­these nonverbal inactive moments, I felt most in conflict with my role. Watching ­children being hit, I often felt the need to intervene—­because, in the end, I personally did not agree with it. I never witnessed the causing of vis­i­ble, severe injuries, but p ­ eople repeatedly reported incidents to me and showed me injuries post-­ occurrence. In a more “seriously harmful” situation I may have had to compromise my non-­intervention stance. Recognizing that my personal beliefs inevitably influenced how I saw, understood, and interpreted the world I encountered in Zanzibar, I never intervened and ­limited the degree to which I would allow my data to be biased by direct interference. The ethical dilemma inherent in my positionality and attempts to live an ethical life was certainly “haunted by what is one’s responsibility in allowing such a state of affairs [rape, torture ­etc.] to persist” (Das 2015b, 79; 2007). Eventually, I settled on the position that it was a question of timing rather than of engagement or nonengagement. Fi­nally, my non-­intervention also served as a preventive mea­sure from potentially being prohibited from observing at the schools. 4. Islam, in this book, is understood first and foremost as a discursive tradition and a pro­cessual category in terms of the practices and writings that are attributed to it and how t­ hese are used (Asad [1986] 2009; Soares and Osella 2009). This is not a book about all Muslims in East Africa, but about a range of discourses and activities around child protection and corporal punishment and how young ­people and adults use and make sense of them.

CHAPTER 1 ​ ​ ​B EING YOUNG IN ZANZIBAR 1. Zanzibaris follow the Shafi’i school of Sunni Islam (Ingrams [1931] 2007, 77), which continue to be ­shaped by Ibadhi and Sufi, as well as reformist and fundamentalist, influences (Beckmann 2010; Parkin 1995). 203

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2. In Swahili “marrying” for men is expressed by an active verb (kuoa); “being married (off) to someone” is the passive form of the verb and (kuolewa) and is applied to ­women. 3. The concept kubaleghe is in line with the Islamic ­legal definition of puberty—­bulugh—­ which assigns the ages of fifteen for boys and nine for girls as denoting physical and sexual maturity; rushd—­the maturity of the mind—is distinguished as the endpoint of a separate pro­cess. See https://­w ww​.­a l​-­islam​.­org​/­religion​-­a l​-­islam​-­a nd​-­marriage​ /­beginning​-­sexual​-­life​-­bulugh​-a ­ nd​-r­ ushd (accessed November 9, 2020). 4. The collected traditions of the life and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. 5. He referred to the Qur’an sura 26, verse 18, and hadith Musaffaab (kumsaba’an). 6. This 1 ­percent of non-­Muslim c ­ hildren are hardly recognizable in public life, as a local development worker told me: “Even if we have Christian ­children in Zanzibar, they ­w ill also dress like Muslim ­children—they ­w ill cover up, ­because it is what all the other ­children do.” 7. The oral rec­ord of the teachings, sayings, deeds and s­ ilent permissions (or disapprovals) of the Prophet and his companions. 8. Tohara comes from Arabic and means clean (safi). 9. Lit. “to not have physical collaboration.” 10. Lit. “the act of marriage.” 11. Most state schools operate two shifts per day due to the large number of students. 12. Education reform is regulated by the government of the United Republic of Tanzania. 13. Formal Muslim greeting, lit. “may the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you.” 14. Lit. “you ­w ill receive good parenting/care.” 15. Lit. “you are offending their soul.” 16. State parties are called to “assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express t­ hose views freely in all m ­ atters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity.” Article 13 mentions that “the child s­ hall have the right to freedom of expression,” and adds that “the exercise of this right may be subject to certain restrictions” such as “for re­spect of the rights or reputations of ­others, or for the protection of (. . .) public order, public health or morals.” 17. “States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.” This is amplified by the addition that “States Parties ­shall re­spect and promote the right of the child to fully participate in cultural and artistic life and s­ hall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.” 18. Specified h ­ ere is e ­ very child’s “responsibilities ­towards his f­ amily and society, the State and other legally recognized communities and the international community.” 19. Such duties, which “the child, subject to his age and ability” is to fulfill include the responsibility “to work for the cohesion of the f­ amily, to re­spect his parents, superiors and elders at all times and to assist them in case of need,” as well as “to preserve and strengthen African cultural values in his relations with other members of the society, in the spirit of tolerance, dialogue and consultation and to contribute to the moral well-­being of society.” 20. Traditional Muslim robe (kanzu) and cap (kofia) for men.



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CHAPTER 2 ​ ​ ​CHILDHOOD WITH/OUT PUNISHMENT 1. ­There was no gendered pattern in the use of this game between boys and girls. 2. As the form of the verses ­matter to the genre of Swahili poetry, I ­here reproduce them in the manner they w ­ ere written by my child interlocutors. 3. Swahili sayings are popu­lar in everyday commentary of social events as they reflect everyday expectations and norms (Farsi 1967; Scheven 1981) and “reinforce common understanding, and act as guidelines for and reminders of proper social behaviour” (Kresse 2007: 140). 4. This is similarly expressed in this saying, mlimwengu ni mwanawe—­human beings’ relation to the world depends on their ­children. 5. The saying samaki mkunje angali mbichi akishakauka hakunjiki (fold the fish while it is raw; when it is dry you ­can’t fold it anymore) reiterates the same logic of person formation during childhood. 6. See Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, http://­w ww​.­oxfordislamicstudies​.­com​ /­article​/o ­ pr​/­t236​/e ­ 1008​?­​_ ­hi​=1­ &​_­pos​=2 ­ (accessed December 22, 2019). 7. This links to chapter 2’s discussion of ­children’s sins not counting in Islam ­until they reach adolescence, b ­ ecause e ­ arlier they are not regarded as moral agents aware of their own wrongdoing. 8. Nevertheless, not thinking of c ­ hildren as fully h ­ uman beings is familiar to all socie­ ties around the world and is reflected in, for example, not being allowed to vote before the age of eigh­teen. This establishes a parallel between c ­ hildren’s lives in Zanzibar and other socie­ties. 9. ‫ ربقلا باذع‬Adhāb al-­Qabr—­the “Punishment of the Grave,” as mentioned in the hadith. 10. The Arabic term eiqab ‫( باقع‬chastise, punish, discipline) is commonly translated as “infliction of punishment.” 11. I refer to adhabu as chastisement, rather than punishment, ­because when applied, usually, its aim is to chasten the person—­that is, to have a moderating or restraining effect—­rather than to extract a penalty or to make the child pay a corporal price for pos­si­ble wrongdoing. 12. Although group discussions or direct interrogation situations proved complicated with my young research participants, simply for the sensitivity of the m ­ atter and their fear of the consequences their responses might have, I asked them to write down their views on the two actions. 13. Lit. “a tamarind tree branch.” 14. Despite most Zanzibari c ­ hildren being born into Muslim families, t­ here are c ­ hildren who belong to other denominations, such as Chris­tian­ity and Hinduism. All the ­children who participated in my research w ­ ere Muslim, so I can only speak about them and therefore do not include other religious views.

CHAPTER 3 ​ ​ ​­CHILDREN AND CHILD PROTECTION 1. To avoid a static argument that draws on yet more essentializing categories as already exist of life in Zanzibar, I tease out the complexity inherent in each of the categories I am discussing h ­ ere to reproduce their multidimensionality that is often inherently contradicting but yet unavoidable.

206

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2. Throughout the text I refer to kisiasa only for reasons of simplification while always keeping the other terms in mind. 3. For Muslim Zanzibari ­mothers, childbirth is followed by the arobaini -­a period of forty days of seclusion of the ­mother and the newborn. 4. Jimbo consists of par­tic­u­lar leaves (majani) and roots (mizizi) and ­water in which the child has to be bathed (kumkosha) twice e ­ very day in the first week a ­ fter birth. 5. The mvuje mix consists of wheat flour (unga wa ngano), mvuje, and gum arabicum. 6. The community’s responsibility in assuring c ­ hildren’s adequate be­hav­ior extends even to institutions like the police. I was told of cases when parents took their child to a teacher or a police officer to ask them to chastise them on their behalf, ­because they felt that their own efforts to correct their child’s be­hav­ior had failed. 7. This offered a wider realm for association than asking them to reflect on one term only. 8. National strategy, the ­legal framework, coordinating agency, local prevention and response ser­vices, child-­friendly justice system, child participation, an aware and supportive public, committed and skilled workforces, adequate resources, standards, regulation, monitoring and oversight, and data collection system. 9. ­These include the police, where a Gender and C ­ hildren Desk for reporting abuse cases was established, and Mnazi Mmoja Hospital, where a One Stop Center (now Mkono kwa Mkono Center) for first-­aid treatment of and referrals for abuse cases operates. A ­children’s court section was established at Zanzibar’s High Court to respond to cases of child victims and perpetrators in a child-­f riendly manner. In addition, a Diploma in Child Protection was established at Zanzibar University to train the f­ uture workforce to run the national protection system. 10. See https://­resourcecentre​.­savethechildren​.­net​/­our​-­thematic​-­a reas​/­child​-­protection​ /­child​-p ­ rotection​-­s ystems (accessed May 7, 2020). 11. Within the MoESWYWC is the Department of Social Welfare (DSW), which is also concerned with health ­ matters and operates the Child Protection Unit (CPU) that responds to vio­lence against ­children cases. Subordinated to this ministry is the Department of W ­ omen and ­Children (DWC), which coordinates vio­lence prevention and operates the National C ­ hildren’s Advisory Board (NCAB), C ­ hildren’s Councils, and Parental Groups. 12. Also “child-­led,” “child-­focused,” and “child-­f riendly” research methods. 13. According to a group of young NCAB members, it was difficult to encourage existing councils to meet and new councils to form. C ­ hildren in Zanzibar’s dif­fer­ent wards (shehias) ­were not interested in joining ­Children’s Councils if no incentives ­were provided. Additionally, parents w ­ ere hesitant to allow their c ­ hildren to join the councils ­because they considered them politicized. 14. Eighty-­nine in Unguja and seventy-­three in Pemba. 15. Forty-­one in Unguja and twenty in Pemba. 16. ­Children’s Council members often considered themselves as part of Save the C ­ hildren, but not of a government structure. Even though councils w ­ ere intended to be “owned” by government partners, often council meetings only took place when they w ­ ere or­ga­ nized and financed by Save the C ­ hildren. The government ministries that w ­ ere given the responsibility to implement the ­Children’s Councils did not set aside a specific bud­get for their activities.



NOTES TO PAGES 116–166

207

CHAPTER 4 ​ ​ ​C HILD PROTECTION IN ZANZIBAR SCHOOLS 1. Each Suggestion Box held between 20 and 520 letters. 2. See http://­w ww​.­arabnews​.c ­ om​/­news​/­450963 (accessed January 15, 2020).

CHAPTER 5 ​ ​ ​G ENDER, ISLAM, AND CHILD PROTECTION 1. In the UNICEF report, 44.1% of girls and 43% of boys between the ages of thirteen to twenty-­four reported experiencing physical vio­lence by a teacher (2011: 99). 2. The girls’ fears proved relevant in two abuse cases I came to learn about. In the first incident in September 2014 a girl who was perhaps eight years old had been raped and was taken to the Save the C ­ hildren office by her ­mother on two consecutive days, ­because no physicians w ­ ere available at the One Stop Center (OSC), which was officially responsible for attending to rape cases. In the second case I encountered, a fifteen-­year-­old girl had been raped by a fisherman on the beach and suffered from both anal and vaginal tears. A social worker friend of mine took her to the OSC, but similarly, no medical staff was available to attend to her. The perpetrator, as we found out ­later, was eventually caught, beaten, and put in jail. 3. Someone who had sex with a homosexual person is called hanithi (impotent) and is also referred to as wanawake-­wanaume (woman-­man). 4. She added, “You can even sue your own husband and demand divorce if he asks for anal sex (kinyume cha maumbile, lit. the opposite of nature). It’s not allowed in Islam.” 5. A newspaper article echoes this equation, quoting the deputy Permanent Secretaryof Zanzibar as saying that “the abuse of male c ­ hildren was on the increase,” which implied “a risk of having many homosexual cases in ­future.” http://­a llafrica​.­com​ /­stories​/­201601270854​.­html (accessed June 19, 2020). 6. Dhana ya Adabu ya Bakora kwa Wanafunzi katika Uislamu. 7. He pointed me to sura 4, verse 34–35, and sura 24, verses 2 and 4. 8. Mzazi asianze kupiga kwanza, bali mtoto anapokosea amweleze hilo kosa lake kwa upole. 9. Njia zote hizo hazikufaa ndipo atapotumia kiboko kumpiga kama mwalimu. 10. Na ambao mnachelea kutoka katika utiifu wanasihini, muwahame katika malazi na wapi­ geni. Wakikutiini msiwatafutie njia ya kuwaudhi bure. 11. Derived from the Arabic term, men serve as the “custodians (auliya’; singular: wali) of female kin in Islam” (Mahmood 2005, 184). 12. The song “Mke hapigwi kwa fimbo” (A Wife Is Not Hit with a Stick) by the Zanzibar Culture M ­ usic Club, is based on this poem. 13. Mke hapigwi kwa fimbo, wala hapigwi mateke. 14. Tabia hiyo ni mbaya. 15. Kupiga piga si kwema, kaa nae kwa salama.

CHAPTER 6 ​ ​ ​DECOLONIZING CHILD PROTECTION 1. Lit. “you have eaten their money.” 2. Whereas legally the age of consented marriage is eigh­teen, girls can get married at the age of fifteen with their parents’ consent. According to Islamic law, marriage is pos­si­ble from the age of nine.

208

NOTES TO PAGES 173–192

3. In Zanzibar, the ongoing postrevolutionary situation t­ oday directly links to the fear and mistrust in the government that prevail in society.

CONCLUSION 1. The socio-­ecological framework that child protection organ­izations typically use to understand “how f­ actors that influence a child’s likelihood of experiencing interpersonal vio­lence interact within and between a number of social and ecological ‘levels’ ” (UNICEF 2015) acknowledges that “vio­lence is intimately connected to how relationships are structured and defined by power dynamics” (Maternowska, Potts, and Fry 2016, 8). However, although this framework is promising and certainly a helpful tool, it misses the opportunity to look at the links where, for example, as in the case of Zanzibar, religion and law overlap. 2. The “growing enthusiasm for mea­sur­ing and making quantifiable aspirations in the field of social life and h ­ uman rights” (Merry and Wood 2015, 3) should make creative attempts to include more difficult-­to-­measure concepts—or t­ hose that are less recognized for having been unmeasured—­such as empathy and care, spirituality, re­spect, and compassion, ­because locally t­ hese mattered most.

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IN D E X

Note: Page references in italics refer to illustrative ­matter. Abdalhassan, Mwalimu, 125 Abu-­Lughod, Lila, 158 abuse. See udhalilishaji ACRWC. See African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) adabu, 34–37, 52–53; adhabu and, 62, 73–74, 141–143; as discipline, 60–62, 140–141; personhood and, 45; as term, 191, 201. See also heshima adabu mbadala, 112, 128–129, 201. See also alternative discipline adhabu, 55–56; adabu and, 62, 73–74, 141–143; by authority figures, 206n6; as caning, 64–65; ­children’s views on, 39; as term, 201, 205n11; as tool for correcting ­m istakes, 62–63. See also discipline adhabu mbadala, 109, 112. See also adhabu Af­ghan­i­stan, 13 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC), 2–3, 41–42, 44 Africans, The (Mazrui), 78 agency, 99–101, 187–188. See also participation of ­children Ahmed (child), 92 Ahmed, Mwalimu, 122 akhlaq, 27, 53, 54, 72, 201 akika, 82, 149 Alawiyyah, 57 Ali (child), 37 Ali, Mwalimu, 51, 124 alternative discipline, 109–111, 129–131; chores, 32, 60, 99, 109, 112; protection vs. punishment of, 127–129; as supplement to caning, 120–127; theory and practice of, 111–115 Amal, 90, 112–113 Amina, 63, 89, 90 Amira, 33 Archambault, Caroline, 64–65 Argenti, Nicolas, 85 Arif, 182–183 Arkham, 113 arobaini, 84, 206n3 Asha, Bi, 162

bakora, 201. See also canes Bali, Theodora, 126 Barani School, 121, 123 Beckmann, Nadine, 148 be­hav­ior. See tabia beliefs, hierarchies of, 162–164 Bonnafous-­B oucher, Maria, 156 Botswana, 120 Bourdillon, Michael, 7, 113, 178–179 Boyden, Jo, 108 boys: initiation rites for, 30–32; sexual abuse and protection of, 133, 135–139, 151–154, 207n5; statistics on vio­lence against, 207n1 (ch. 5). See also child; gender differences; men Cambodia, 136 canes, 64, 201, 202 caning. See adhabu Caplan, Pat, 172 character. See tabia chastisement. See adhabu child, definition of, 76 childbirth rituals and practices, 84, 206nn3–4. See also health and well-­being child development, 46–47; developing personhood, 38–40, 45–46, 139–140, 205n8; puberty, 27–29, 76, 141, 201, 204n3; responsibilities and, 41, 42–45; of sociality, 33–38. See also childhood; child rights and protection; health and well-­being childhood, 23–24, 46–47; ­children’s views on, 28, 90–91; con­temporary constructions of, 26–27; historical constructions of, 24–26; as social space, 29–33; translocal imaginaries of, 40–41; universalized approach to, 96–104. See also child development; child rights and protection; decolonization and decolonizing framework on child protection child participation. See participation of ­children ­Children’s Councils, 96, 135, 206n16

225

2 2 6 I ndex

­children’s views: on adabu, 56–57, 63; on adhabu, 64–65; on alternative discipline, 112–113, 115–120; on being the “nation of tomorrow,” 180–181; on childhood, 28, 90–91; on health’s protection, 89; on kuchapa, 68–69; on kupiga, 67–68; on protection, 88–90; on punishment, 9–10, 71; on research collaboration, 194–196; on rights and responsibilities, 42; on school and education, 8–9; on well-­being, 177, 180. See also participation of ­children child rights and protection, 2–8, 41–42, 76–77, 106–108, 185–188; agency and, 99–101; vs. alternative discipline, 127–129; categories of, 77–78; c ­ hildren’s opinions on, 8–12; as concept, 104–106, 108; decolonizing framework on, 156, 157–159, 169–176, 208n1; ­f uture of, 193–196; gendered practice and, 133–139, 151–154; globally, 16–18; implications and recommendations for, 188–193; Islamic law and tradition on, 12–16, 80–83; as regime, 159–166; relational empathy and, 181–184, 208n2; religious approaches to, 79–83; responsibilities and, 42–45; as safety and care, 86–88; as safety from poverty and vio­lence, 90–92, 190; Swahili approaches to, 83; terminology of, 78–79, 84, 85; universalized approach to, 92–96, 155, 168; Zanzibar ­Children’s Act and, 2–3, 6, 166, 203n1 (intro.). See also child development; childhood; health and well-­being; participation of ­children; safety; UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) Chisungu (Richards), 51 chores, 32, 60, 99, 109, 112. See also alternative discipline Chris­tian­ity, 55, 204n6, 205n14 chuo, 29, 30, 32, 89, 201. See also education; madrasa civilization. See ustaarabu civilizing pro­cess, 51–52 Colombia, 17 colonialism, 24–26, 170–171 Comaroff, Jean and John, 172 common law, 15. See also Sharia law compliance, 101. See also participation of ­children Concept of the Discipline of the Cane for Students in Islam, The (MoEVT), 140, 142–143, 144 Cooper, Elizabeth, 113–114 corporal punishment, overview, 2–5, 65–66, 94–95. See also adhabu; alternative discipline; child rights and protection; kuchapa; kupiga correction. See adhabu courtesy. See adabu CRC. See UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) Das, Veena, 27, 49, 158 dawa, 82, 83, 84–86, 201

Decolonising the Mind (Ngugi wa Thiong’o), 170–171 decolonization and decolonizing framework on child protection, 22, 156, 157–159, 169–176. See also universalized approaches Department of Social Welfare (DSW), 93, 206n11. See also Ministry of Empowerment, Social Welfare, Youth, ­Women, and ­Children (MoESWYWC) Department of W ­ omen and ­Children (DWC), 73, 103, 162, 173, 206n11. See also Ministry of Empowerment, Social Welfare, Youth, ­Women, and ­Children (MoESWYWC) discipline: vs. abuse, 111; Asha on, 162; ­children’s views on, 119; Foucault on, 56; religious traditions on, 55, 139–147, 163; terminology of, 52, 89, 202. See also adhabu discrimination, 25, 50, 117, 154. See also gender differences East African Lit­er­a­ture Bureau, 58 education: ­children’s views on, 180; control of reform, 204n12; institutional norms of, 29, 32–33; vernacular forms of, 30–32; worldly vs. religious, 24, 181. See also schools Egypt, 164 Elias, Norbert, 51–52 empathy, 15, 22, 38, 178, 179, 181–184, 192, 208n2. See also love; re­spect ethics. See morality ethnic cleansing, 25 Fagiano, Mark, 183, 184 Faiza (child), 142 Faiza, Ukdi, 26 Fanon, Frantz, 170 Fatma, 24, 58 Fatuma, Bi, 124 feminism: on c ­ hildren’s rights, 135, 147, 177; on gender equality, 136, 152; Islam and, 133 fimbo, 201. See also canes food, 87, 91, 109 Foucault, Michel, 56, 156, 157 France, 2 Fuglesang, Minou, 106 ­f uture nation, 177, 178–181 Gearhart, Rebecca, 84–85 gender differences, 22, 154; in discipline practices, 139–147, 151–153; in Islamic traditions, 28, 132–133; marriage terms and, 204n2; in protection practices, 133–139; in vio­lence statistics, 207n1 (ch. 5). See also discrimination; ­women genocide, 25 Germany, 2 Giladi, Avner, 82 girls: compliance of, 102; corporal punishment and vio­lence against, 151–154;

I ndex

initiation rites for, 30, 31–32; marriage of, 27–29, 207n2 (ch. 6); puberty of, 27–29, 76, 141, 201, 204n3; sexual abuse and protection of, 132, 134–136, 207n2 (ch. 5); statistics on vio­lence against, 207n1 (ch. 5). See also child; gender differences; ­women Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of ­Children (GIECP), 2 good be­hav­ior. See adabu ­Great Britain. See United Kingdom greetings, 33–37 Habashi, Janette, 172 hadith: defined, 28, 201, 204n4; on discipline, 13, 140; on life stages, 29. See also Islamic tradition Haji Gora Haji, 148, 150 haki, 201 Halima (child), 42, 71 Halima, Bi, 123 Hamadi, Mwalimu, 1, 3 happiness, 24 Hassan, Amour Haji, 103, 126 Hawaa, 56–57 haya, 60, 148, 201 healers, 83, 85–86, 106, 192. See also medicine and health practices healing, 202. See also medicine and health practices health and well-­being, 177, 181–184, 190–193. See also childbirth rituals and practices; child rights and protection Hemedi, 113 heshima, 201. See also adabu; re­spect Hewanzuri Primary School, 116, 122, 123 hierarchies: of beliefs, 162–164; monetary, 164–166; of morality, 161–162 Hinduism, 205n14 hirizi, 82–83 historical overview of Zanzibar, 24–26 hitting. See kupiga homo­sexuality, 137–139, 207n3 humaneness. See utu humanity. See utu human-­ness. See ubinadamu Humphreys, Sara, 120 Indonesia, 17 initiation rites of passage, 30–31 institutionalized spaces of learning, 32–33. See also education Islamic tradition: on child protection, 80–83; child protection regime and, 166–169; on discipline, 55, 139–147, 153, 163, 207n11; on life stages, 28, 29; modernity and, 170–174; research bound­aries and definition of, 203n4, 203n1 (ch. 1); on w ­ omen’s role, 28, 132–133; in Zanzibar, overview, 12–16. See also hadith; morality; Sharia law; Swahili cultural traditions

227

Jamila, 113 jando, 30–31 Jibril, 64 jimbo, 84, 206n4 Judaism, 55 Kamaria, 89 ­ enya, 4, 25, 64, 85, 113–114, 136, 170 K Khadija (child), 89 Khadija, Bi, 137 Khalida, 42 Kheirat, Bi, 114, 123 kiboko, 201 kidini, 80, 82, 104, 201. See also Islamic tradition kidunia, 24, 201 kienyeji. See Swahili cultural traditions kiislamu, 201 kijana, 201 kimagharibi, 202 kinga, 79, 84, 85. See also child rights and protection Kisamaki Primary School, 1, 3, 117–119, 124, 125, 141 kiserikali, 92 kisiasa, 78, 92, 201, 206n2 kitamaduni. See Swahili cultural traditions kizungu, 202 Kleinman, Arthur, 6 kombe. See medicine and health practices kosa, 201 Kresse, Kai, 45 kubaleghe, 27–29, 76, 141, 201, 204n3 kuchapa, 65–71, 74–75, 201 kuhifadhi. See child rights and protection kukinga. See child rights and protection kukosa, 63 kulinda. See child rights and protection kupiga, 48, 66, 67–71, 74–75, 202 kurekebisha, 63, 66 kuvunja ungo, 28. See also puberty La Fontaine, Jean, 51 Laila, 92 language, 20, 170–171 Last, Murray, 67, 72, 87 Latifa, Bi, 121 Lévi-­Strauss, Claude, 78 Liongo, Mundhir, 148 Loimeier, Roman, 173 love, 34, 37–38, 117, 180. See also empathy; re­spect Lulu, Bi, 122 madrasa: attendance at, 29, 32; child protection system and, 98–99; defined, 202. See also chuo; education magharibi, 202 magic, 78, 79, 82, 84, 202 Mahamudu, Mwalimu, 124 Mahmood, Saba, 139, 148, 174, 177 Mahsin Madawa, 84 Maimuna, 37–38, 90

2 2 8 I ndex

Malaysia, 17 Malkia, 109 manners. See adabu Mariam, Bi, 125, 126 Mariamu, Bi, 87 Mariyasa, Bi, 124 marriage, 27–29, 204n2, 207n2 (ch. 6) Marwan, 38 maturation. See puberty Mazrui, Ali, 78, 161, 173, 187 medicine and health practices, 82, 83, 84–86, 201 men: role in Islamic discipline practices, 139–147, 153, 207n11; social and familial role of, 149–150. See also boys; gender differences menstruation, 28. See also puberty midwife. See mkunga wa jadi mikwaju, 202. See also canes Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT): on c ­ hildren’s voice, 102; on discipline, 70, 122, 140, 142–143; jurisdiction of, 94, 127; program implementation by, 159, 160; on protection approaches, 88, 114, 163; on ulinzi, 79 Ministry of Empowerment, Social Welfare, Youth, W ­ omen, and C ­ hildren (MoESWYWC), 63, 70, 79, 88, 94, 159, 206n11. See also Department of Social Welfare (DSW); Department of ­Women and C ­ hildren (DWC) Mji Mkongwe, 202 mkunga wa jadi, 202 modernity, 7, 22, 159, 169–176 MoESWYWC. See Ministry of Empowerment, Social Welfare, Youth, ­Women, and ­Children MoEVT. See Ministry of Education and Vocational Training Mohamed (child), 37 Mohammad (child), 111 monetary hierarchies, 162–164 monetary penalties, 114, 115, 118, 123, 129–130. See also alternative discipline Montgomery, Heather, 146, 194 morality: cultivating, 38–40; hierarchies of, 161–162; Islamic traditions on, 27, 53, 54, 72, 201; Kleinman on, 7; protection and, 80–81; through discipline or punishment, 71–74; of ­women, 148. See also Islamic tradition Morrison, Heidi, 164 Morrow, V ­ irginia, 108, 134 Morton, Helen, 59 Moza, Bi, 59 mtoto, 202 mtoto mchanga, 202 mtu mzima, 39–40 Mubarak, Sheikh, 79, 82, 140–141, 143–145 Muna (child), 112 Muna, Bi: on child development, 27, 28, 39; on discipline, 141; on education, 32; on healing, 84, 85, 87; on men’s role, 149; on protection rites, 81–82; on re­spect, 37, 104

Munir, Munir Kadhar, 12, 98 Mussa, Mwalimu, 58–59, 70, 72 mvuje, 84, 206n4 Mwajuma, Bi, 86 mwalimu, 202 Myers, William, 7, 178–179 mzungu, 202 Nadia, 115 Nadra, 177, 178 Nafisa, 42, 43 Naifat, 38 Naima, 63 Nassra, 91 National ­Children’s Advisory Board (NCAB), 96, 165, 206n11, 206n13 National Study on Vio­lence against ­Children (Tanzania, 2009), 5–6 “nation of tomorrow,” 177, 178–181 Nayla, 112 Ngugi wa Thiong’o, 156, 169, 170, 176 nidhamu, 202. See also discipline Nigeria, 17, 67, 87 Nuna, Bi, 76, 77, 79, 166 Nuru, Bi, 145–146 obedience, 37–38 Oman, 17 Omani history in Zanzibar, 24–25 Orientalism, 158 Palestine, 17 Parental Groups, 96 parental responsibilities, 90, 104–106, 114, 180–181, 189 participation of ­children: ­children’s agency, 99–101, 187–188; as compliance, 101; CRC on, 204nn16–19; as decline in re­spect, 103–104; rights to, 41–42; as threat, 102–103. See also ­children’s views Pelto, Gretel, 106 penalty. See adhabu personhood, 38–40, 45–46, 49, 139–140. See also utu Peters, Rudolph, 16 piety. See Islamic tradition; religious traditions poetry: as genre, 50, 205n2; on health and well-­being, 89, 177, 178; on punishment, 10, 56–57, 71. See also ­children’s views po­liti­cal. See kisiasa positionality of author, 4–5, 203n3. See also research “positive discipline.” See alternative discipline Positive Discipline program. See Save the ­Children poverty, 90–92, 113 prevention. See kinga protection. See child rights and protection puberty, 27–29, 76, 141, 201, 204n3 punishment. See adhabu

I ndex

Qur’an. See hadith; Islamic tradition Qur’anic school. See chuo; madrasa Rabinow, Paul, 8 Rajabi-­A rdeshiri, Masoud, 45 Rama, Mwalimu, 122 Ramadan (man), 25 rape. See sexual abuse Rashid, Mwalimu, 115–116 Raum, Otto, 142 Rayan, 90 reciprocity, 37, 57, 58, 60 Regulations for Corporal Punishment (Education Act), 3 religious law. See Sharia law religious traditions, 55, 204n6, 205n14. See also Islamic tradition religious vs. worldly education, 24, 181 research: author positionality, 4–5, 203n3; ­children’s views on, 194–196; methodological approach to, 18–20 re­spect, 33–38, 71, 103–104, 201. See also adabu; empathy; love revolutionary history of Zanzibar, 2–3, 24–25, 208n3 Reynolds, Pamela, 157 Richards, Audrey, 31, 51 right. See haki rights. See child rights and protection rites of passage, 30–32. See also puberty Rukia, 89, 92, 113 Ruwaida, 24, 28 Rwanda, 25 safety, 86–92, 190. See also child rights and protection Said, Edward, 158 Salia, 60 Salma, Bi, 70 Salum, 37 Samira, 58 Saudi Arabia, 17, 123–124 Save the ­Children, 1, 6, 8, 92, 93–95, 112, 134, 188 Scheper-­Hughes, Nancy, 105, 183 schools, 19; as central interventionist on child protection, 6; protection as prevention in, 94–95; as research sites, 18–19; terms for, 201, 202. See also education science, 78, 85, 89 secularization, 22, 157, 166–169, 174–175 sexual abuse, 132–139, 207n2 (ch. 5), 207n5 sexuality, 137–139, 148–149, 207nn3–4 shame, 60, 134, 148, 201 Sharia law, 15–17, 146, 150, 166, 168, 172, 202. See also Islamic tradition Sharifu, Sheikh, 83 sheha, 202 shehia, 70, 202, 206n13 sheikh, 202 Shinuna, Bi, 122 Singh, Renu, 134

229

slave trade, 24 smacking. See kuchapa sociality, 33–40. See also child development Somalia, 17 South Africa, 136 South Sudan, 17 State University of Zanzibar (SUZA), 30, 73 Subyaani, Ummu, 81 suggestion boxes, 115–120 Suhaila, 10, 11, 42–44, 50–51, 54, 112 Suleikha, 90–91 Sumaya, 122 sunna, 30, 124, 204n7 Swahili cultural traditions, 25–26, 77, 79, 83, 104. See also Islamic tradition tabia, 202 Tanganyika, 25 Tanzania, 2, 204n12 teachers’ views on discipline, 120–127 Teachings of Islam about Childrearing (guidebook), 140 Thairu, Lucy, 106 Tonga, 59 trade history, global, 24 ­T riple Seven Hadith, 29 Tsing, Anna, 158 Tunisia, 17 ubinadamu, 55, 59, 202. See also utu udhalilishaji, 111, 138, 163, 202 uganga, 202 uhifadhi, 79. See also child rights and protection; safety ukdi, 42, 202 ulinzi. See child rights and protection UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), 2; on childhood, 96–98; ­children’s views on, 134; on participation of ­children, 204nn16–19; UNICEF’s use of, 93; as universal framework, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 171 Unguja Island, 25, 134, 202 UNICEF, 92, 93; National Study on Vio­lence against ­Children, 5–6, 133–134, 139; on Zanzibar C ­ hildren’s Act, 203n1 (intro.) United Kingdom, 2, 45 Unit for Alternative Forms of Discipline, 4, 94, 112, 164 universalized approaches: to childhood, 96–104; to child rights and protection, 92–96, 155, 168–170. See also decolonization and decolonizing framework on child protection unyago, 30, 31 usalama, 79. See also child rights and protection; safety ustaarabu, 51–52, 54–55, 57, 71, 202 ustadh, 48, 112, 162, 202 utu, 39, 53–55, 202 uzima, 39–40

2 3 0 I ndex

vernacular education. See education viboko. See canes Vietnam, 136 Vio­lence Against C ­ hildren (VAC) survey, 5–6, 133–134, 139 voice, 102–103. See also agency; ­children’s views Wahida, 57 walking stick. See bakora Warda, Bi, 125 Warner, Joanne, 134 well-­being. See health and well-­being ­women: childbirth practices of, 206n3; discipline of, 143–147; in formation, 148–149; Islamic law and traditions on, 28, 132–133; marriage of, 27–29, 204n2, 207n2 (ch. 6). See also gender differences; girls worldly, 24, 181, 201

youth, as term. See kijana Yussuf, 33 Zacharia, Bi, 36–37, 141–142 Zahor, 37 Zanzibar ­Children’s Act (2015), 2–3, 6, 166, 203n1 (intro.) Zanzibar Education Act (1988), 3 Zanzibar Muslim Acad­emy, 12, 98–99 Zanzibar Revolution (1964), 24–25 Zanzibar Teachers Union (ZATU), 8, 87, 165 Zanzibar University, 88, 155 Zeinab (child), 64 Zeinab, Ukdi, 42 Zubeid, Mwalimu, 123 Zuhaila (child), 58 Zuhaila, Bi, 114 Zuhura, 10, 12, 89–90

A B OU T T H E AU T H O R

FRANZISKA FAY has worked—­both in academia and international develop-

ment—​on issues related to young ­people since 2010. She first lived in Zanzibar as part of her Swahili-­language training in 2009. Fay has published on child protection, discipline, development, visual and participatory research methods with ­children in schools, decolonization, photography, and the arts in Eastern Africa. She received funding for her research from the German Academic Exchange Ser­vice, the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the British Institute in Eastern Africa and in 2016 received the Royal Anthropological Institute‘s Sutasoma Award. Fay holds a PhD in social anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London and master’s degrees in anthropological research methods from SOAS and in Education and Swahili Linguistics from Goethe University, Frankfurt. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Research Centre Normative ­Orders at Goethe University, Frankfurt.

Available titles in the Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies: Amanda E. Lewis, Race in the Schoolyard: Negotiating the Color Line in Classrooms and Communities ­ hildren’s Folklore and Identities Donna M. Lanclos, At Play in Belfast: C in Northern Ireland Cindy Dell Clark, In Sickness and in Play: ­Children Coping with Chronic Illness Peter B. Pufall and Richard P. Unsworth, eds., Rethinking Childhood David M. Rosen, Armies of the Young: Child Soldiers in War and Terrorism Lydia Murdoch, ­Imagined Orphans: Poor Families, Child Welfare, and Contested Citizenship in London Rachel Burr, Vietnam’s ­Children in a Changing World Laurie Schaffner, Girls in Trou­ble with the Law Susan A. Miller, Growing Girls: The Natu­ral Origins of Girls’ Organ­i zations in Amer­i­ca Marta Gutman and Ning de Coninck-­Smith, eds., Designing Modern Childhoods: History, Space, and the Material Culture of C ­ hildren Jessica Fields, Risky Lessons: Sex Education and Social In­equality Sarah E. Chinn, Inventing Modern Adolescence: The ­Children of Immigrants in Turn-­of-­the-­Century Amer­i­ca Debra Curtis, Pleasures and Perils: Girls’ Sexuality in a Ca­r ib­bean Consumer Culture Don S. Browning and Binnie J. Miller-­McLemore, eds., ­Children and Childhood in American Religions Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, Translating Childhoods: Immigrant Youth, Language, and Culture Don S. Browning and Marcia J. Bunge, eds., ­Children and Childhood in World Religions Hava Rachel Gordon, We Fight to Win: In­equality and the Politics of Youth Activism Nikki Jones, Between Good and Ghetto: African American Girls and Inner-­City Vio­lence Kate Douglas, Contesting Childhood: Autobiography, Trauma, and Memory Jennifer Helgren and Colleen A. Vasconcellos, eds., Girlhood: A Global History Karen Lury, The Child in Film: Tears, Fears, and Fairy Tales Michelle Ann Abate, Raising Your Kids Right: C ­ hildren’s Lit­er­a­t ure and American Po­liti­cal Conservatism

Michael Bourdillon, Deborah Levison, William Myers, and Ben White, Rights and Wrongs of ­Children’s Work Jane A. Siegel, Disrupted Childhoods: ­Children of ­Women in Prison Valerie Leiter, Their Time Has Come: Youth with Disabilities on the Cusp of Adulthood Edward W. Morris, Learning the Hard Way: Masculinity, Place, and the Gender Gap in Education Erin N. Winkler, Learning Race, Learning Place: Shaping Racial Identities and Ideas in African American Childhoods Jenny Huberman, Ambivalent Encounters: Childhood, Tourism, and Social Change in Banaras, India Walter Hamilton, ­Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story Jon M. Wolseth, Life on the Malecón: C ­ hildren and Youth on the Streets of Santo Domingo Lisa M. Nunn, Defining Student Success: The Role of School and Culture ­ iddle: How ­Children of Immigrants Negotiate Vikki S. Katz, Kids in the M Community Interactions for Their Families Bambi L. Chapin, Childhood in a Sri Lankan Village: Shaping Hierarchy and Desire David M. Rosen, Child Soldiers in the Western Imagination: From Patriots to Victims Marianne Modica, Race among Friends: Exploring Race at a Suburban School ­ hildren and Youth in the United States: Elzbieta M. Gozdziak, Trafficked C Reimagining Survivors Pamela Robertson Wojcik, Fantasies of Neglect: Imagining the Urban Child in American Film and Fiction Maria Kromidas, City Kids: Transforming Racial Baggage ­ atters Ingred A. Nelson, Why Afterschool M Jean Marie Hunleth, ­Children as Caregivers: The Global Fight against Tuberculosis and HIV in Zambia ­ fter Guns: Reciprocity and Re­spect among Abby Hardgrove, Life a Young Men in Liberia Michelle J. Bellino, Youth in Postwar Guatemala: Education and Civic Identity in Transition Vera Lopez, Complicated Lives: Girls, Parents, Drugs, and Juvenile Justice Rachel E. Dunifon, ­You’ve Always Been ­There for Me: Understanding the Lives of Grandchildren Raised by Grandparents Cindy Dell Clark, All Together Now: American Holiday Symbolism among C ­ hildren and Adults

Laura Moran, Belonging and Becoming in a Multicultural World: Refugee Youth and the Pursuit of Identity Hannah Dyer, The Queer Aesthetics of Childhood: Asymmetries of Innocence and the Cultural Politics of Child Development ­ hildren in Child Health: Negotiating Young Lives Julie Spray, The C and Health in New Zealand Franziska Fay, Disputing Discipline: Child Protection, Punishment, and Piety in Zanzibar Schools