Children’s rights organisations are accusing education officials of failing to act on cases of sexual abuse at schools.
Luke Lamprecht, manager of the Teddy Bear Clinic in Johannesburg, told the Mail & Guardian that while schools are happy to report suspected cases of abuse that occur outside of the school environment ”when it happens inside the schools it’s a whole other story, there’s a big cover-up”.
Last November several NGOs put together an 18-page document titled Dossier of Shame on schools that they allege protect schoolyard rapists. The M&G has a copy of the dossier, in which the NGOs allege that ”the rape of children by teachers — and active cover-ups by schools — and the rape of children by children (often on school premises) is escalating”.
The dossier, compiled by five children’s rights NGOs — the Teddy Bear Clinic for Abused Children, Women Against Child Abuse, Childline in KwaZulu-Natal, the United Sanctuary Against Abuse and Resources Aimed at the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (Rapcan) — is an anecdotal collection of schoolyard rape cases that were dealt with by rape counsellors. The clinical anecdotes are taken from Childline in KwaZulu-Natal cases and individual cases cited by counsellors across Gauteng.
The dossier details 76 cases of sexual, physical and emotional abuse from June 1999 to June 2003 that it alleges were reported to education officials, but were ignored by provincial education departments.
Last November Lamprecht handed the dossier to Thebe Mohatle, spokesperson for the Gauteng Department of Education, and forwarded it to the South African Council for Educators (Sace), a professional organisation to which all educators are required to belong.
Childline claims that of the 58 cases reported in KwaZulu-Natal — 55 alleged to have been committed by teachers or staff — only two have been investigated.
The Teddy Bear Clinic cited 18 cases in the report — ranging from gang-rape by fellow pupils to a principal fathering a child with a 14-year-old pupil — but claims the Gauteng department did not respond.
Mohatle says the department asked the Teddy Bear Clinic shortly after the release of the report to ”supply specific references to the cases, [but] nothing has come through to date”.
Challenging this, Lamprecht says he handed Mohatle a case at the same time he handed him the dossier, and is reluctant to compile more reports until he receives feedback.
In the dossier, the Teddy Bear Clinic says 24% of the offenders it deals with are school-going children aged seven to 14. ”In late August last year, a six-year-old girl was raped by five boys aged eight to 12 in a classroom in Alexandra. Nothing has happened. Neither the child raped nor the boys who raped have received counselling. The headmistress, who knew of the attack but did not report it, has had no measures taken against her even though the case was brought to the attention of Gauteng political leaders.”
The survivor’s father, who cannot be named in order to protect the child’s identity, told the M&G that after the incident he received a phone call from the Gauteng provincial minister for education, Ignatius Jacobs, who promised to keep him informed of the steps he would be taking. He believes Jacobs visited the school and spoke to both the class teacher and the headmistress, but says that the headmistress is still working at the school and that ”nothing has happened”.
Lebelo Maloka, spokesperson for the provincial minister, said: ”Throughout the years we have received information about all sorts of cases at schools, teachers who do not perform their duties, abuse of children and many other inappropriate actions. Each incident reported to us we have responded [to] with diligence and commitment.”
As for child rape, Maloka said that since the provincial minister came into office, the majority of reported cases of sexual misconduct and harassment, including rape, have been dealt with in disciplinary hearings that have resulted in the accused being dismissed and struck off the professional roll by Sace.
Mohatle denied that there are cover-ups. ”[The] department thoroughly investigates any case relating to educator misconduct. The Gauteng Department of Education can proudly state that the twelve cases on sexual abuse in the 2003 academic year all resulted in dismissals.”
Joan van Niekerk, Childline’s national coordinator, told the M&G that of the 58 cases Childline had reported to the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education and Culture, only two had been investigated.
Mandla Msibi, spokesperson for the KwaZulu-Natal department, said it has established a special unit to investigate instances of sexual abuse at schools. He claims that in the past three to four years the department has dismissed more than 20 educators for sexual abuse and is currently dealing with more than 10 cases.
The NGOs have called for immediate disciplinary action against offenders, but claim that current regulations place ”no onus on schools to report rape”.
The April 2002 Report on Sexual Offences Against Children, compiled by the South African Human Rights Commission, found that in Gauteng ”teachers and principals were reported not to want to get involved with sexual abuse cases and ignore incidents reported to them or simply refer the abused child to the police station without reporting the matter themselves”.
However the Child Care Act of 1983 requires teachers who suspect that a ”child has been ill-treated, or suffers from any injury, single or multiple, the cause of which probably might have been deliberate” to report it to a departmental official.
Sace conducts investigations when cases are referred to it. According to Rephabile Kikine, Sace’s legal affairs manager, if educators do not report suspected offences to the relevant authorities such as the department and the police then they are also in breach of Sace and departmental codes of conduct. Sanctions include demotions, fines, cautions and, in severe cases, being struck off the roll.
Sace became aware of the 58 cases referred to by Childline late last year, she said, and four had already been investigated, with one educator struck off the roll. Kikine says she will be in KwaZulu-Natal for a week this month to commence investigation of the cases and determine what steps need to be taken.