Schoolgirls are raped in school toilets, fields and empty classrooms. Charlene Smith previews a report on sexual harassment and assault
International human rights agency, Human Rights Watch (HRW) is to urge South Africa’s education authorities to institute a national plan of action to prevent and deal with sexual violence in schools.
Later this month the HRW will release a damning report, entitled ”Scared at School”, which found that girls of all races and from all levels of society were subjected to abuse and raped in school toilets, fields, empty classrooms and hallways, and dormitories. In short, school is not just a place of learning for South African schoolgirls, it can be a place of terror too.
Schools are often ignorant about the steps they should take. Little or nothing is done to inform children of their rights and the steps they can take. HRW is likely to highlight this, given, too, the high incidence of HIV/Aids in South African schools.
Recommendations from the new HRW report will probably ainclude that schools more comprehensively investigate the background of would-be teachers, specifically for previous records of sexual assault; that pupils who have been raped receive counselling by trained experts attached to schools and at the cost of the state; and compulsory education for educators, principals and pupils occur on gender violence and sexual harassment to create an environment in schools sensitive to such abuses, and where quick action to halt such conduct takes place.
Although there are some provisions in law, including existing rape and sexual harassment legislation, as well as amendments to the 1998 Employment of Educators Act introduced in 2000, which require dismissal of teachers found guilty of serious misconduct – including sexual assault or having a sexual relationship with a learner – too few schools, and even Department of Education officials, are aware of these measures. A report of sexual abuse at a school often leads to frenzied attempts to cover up, instead of deliberate and definite measures to give care to children concerned and to take steps against the alleged perpetrator/s.
HRW researchers in South Africa interviewed not only police, prosecutors, education officials and activists working against child rape, but had access to Childline telephone interviews and interviewed child rape survivors. They included six young girls allegedly raped by a Johannesburg teacher; a 13-year-old raped by two classmates; a nine-year-old gangraped on school premises by schoolboys; a 16-year-old raped in a principal’s office and forced to perform oral sex, and so the list goes on.
What typifies the reports made to HRW is that in every instance the schools tried to hush up the incident. They urged parents not to report the incident to the police or anyone else. The impact on girls sexually abused at school is devastating – many drop out, their school marks plummet as concentration fails, or they become frightened of being in a school where the perpetrator is also present. In addition sexually abused children tend to adopt aggressive behaviour or eating disorders, become suicidal or depressed, may run away and generally demonstrate strong changes in attitude and behaviour if not helped urgently and persistently.
The HRW is expected to recommend that attention to violence against children within the school context form part of a broader government strategy aimed at combatting violence against women.
— The Teacher/Mail & Guardian, Johannesburg, April 2001.