It is said that family is the embrace that absorbs the injustice and harshness of days, to send you back out strong, resilient, and able to defy all circumstances. But what if you are let down by your own family and the blow comes from the core that is supposed to build you up? 

Perhaps the saying “parenthood is invaluable” is not always true. Rather, there are fathers who do not deserve at all to have “parenthood,” due to their lack of all meanings of mercy, humanity and even “fatherhood,” leaving behind crimes that make bodies shiver after the father became the perpetrator of these crimes and the victims were children.

This became clearly evident a few days ago in Hama governorate, where a two-year-old toddler was admitted to Al-Assad Pediatric Hospital due to being subjected to violent and brutal beating by his father.

According to the statements of the doctors in the hospital, the father's assault on his child included beating different parts of his body, especially his head, causing severe swelling on top of the forehead, as the beating left bruises around the eyes.  

His brutality did not stop at that, as he continued his criminal act by burning the child's right foot with cigarettes. The burns on the child's foot were classified as second degree, and you can imagine the amount of pain and the scene in which that innocent soul was, who does not understand anything about this world, and has no sin other than that fate led him to be born in this jungle and to this father.

The child remained in the hospital for treatment and observation for five days until he was discharged last Monday, while the mother obtained a medical report and filed a lawsuit against her husband "the father" accordingly.

The sources did not clarify the reasons and motives that prompted the father to commit this act, although there is no justification for his act other than fair punishment. Covering up such crimes and turning a blind eye to them only leads to what is even more heinous, especially when it comes to childhood, which is considered one of the most sensitive stages.  

Here I cannot help but recall the popular proverb which says, "My heart is with my son and my son’s heart is with a stone," except that the situation has changed today, and the scene has turned for the worse, as we wake up to crimes that the human mind is unable to accept, in which the father preys on the closest people to him with a cold heart, without his conscience being moved a single hair, and without humanity standing before his eyes even for a moment.

Regarding the role of law towards these crimes, Article No. "14" of Law No. "21", which ensures the rights of the child, stipulates that the child has the right to protection from all forms of violence, especially physical, moral, sexual or ethical abuse. 

However, Syrian law has only criminalized domestic violence if it results in major bodily harm, and has not assigned an independent penalty or specialized article for this type of violence. Rather, it refers most penalties related to it to the Penal Code, according to an informed legal source.