This shouldn't have happened

What is intriguing about this story is that this is a minor who is not even supposed to be flogged under Botswana laws.  But surprisingly, the headman who ruled that the boy be lashed four strokes doesn't seem to see anything wrong with this action.  To make matters worse, the person who administered the punishment on the poor boy was just a passerby.

The incident which has led to a loss of life also is enough to cause us to rethink floggings at the kgotla.  How many of these incidents go unreported?  We do not know.  But the fact that just anybody can be invited by the kgotla headman to come and entertain himself with flogging the so-called culprit anyhow, all makes flogging a barbaric, shameful tradition, and our kgotla, a mockery of the same justice it purports to serve.