A teacher in Tonga who admitted to beating an eleven year old student with a table leg, has been fined just over 20 US dollars or 50 Tongan Pa'anga as compensation to buy the child lollies.
The Tonga Chronicle reports that Mrs Loluhama Mahe, a teacher at Houma Government Primary School, pleaded guilty to the assault of a student last Thursday.
It was reported in court that she used the leg of a table to hit the student twenty times.
The general manager of the Tongan national centre for women and children, Ofa Guttenbeil-Likiliki, says this ruling shows the loop-holes in the Tongan justice system.
"Particularly we don't have a child protection order act, we don't have a domestic violence act, we don't have a family law act, all those things that are missing from our legislation."
Ofa Guttenbeil-Likiliki.
