Shania Shayal Prasad 
[File Photo]
Psychologist and Permanent Secretary for Justice Selina Kuruleca believes that corporal punishment not only violates the law but rewires a child’s brain for fear and aggression, creating a cycle of violence that extends into adulthood.
Speaking at the National Conversation on Corporal Punishment in Suva, Kuruleca said Fiji must decide how people choose to raise their children, through fear or through understanding.
Drawing from her experience as both a psychotherapist and former school teacher, she explained that even light physical punishment triggers the brain’s danger response.
“I witnessed through my clients the effects of couple mistreatment, when discipline becomes punishment, when a child is struck, even likely the brain will register danger. Amygdala activates, cortisol surges, and the brain shifts into survival mode. At that moment, learning stops.”
Kuruleca warns that repeated punishment conditions children to associate love with fear, a pattern that can later manifest in violent relationships.
“When we normalize violence as discipline, we create citizens who see violence as communication.”
Referencing WHO research and Fiji’s 2021 UNICEF MICS survey, she noted that 81 percent of children experience violent discipline at home.
Kuruleca is urging Fijians to look to their own cultural traditions for guidance, saying Indigenous practices once prioritized restoration and forgiveness over humiliation.
She says many teachers who call for the return of corporal punishment are not cruel but frustrated and under-resourced, urging the government to invest more in teacher training and counseling support.
She stresses that discouraging corporal punishment will help end the cycle of violence in the community.
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