When I started preparing to write this article about issues around gender in our young democracy, I was feeling quite calm and ready to write about how our proud Constitution and progressive laws has advanced in the protection of girls’ rights and how the conditions of young girls had actually changed for the better.
But I quickly had to review my assumptions. I read reports on violence in schools suffered by young girls at the hands of their teachers and fellow students. I read reports that highlight young girls are more likely to be HIV positive than young boys and many young girls are helping older women bear the burden of care of HIV positive family and community members leading to them dropping out of school.
I read about the prevalence of ‘sugar daddies†and of the necessity for girls to engage in transactional sex as one of the ways for them to access groceries or school fees or clothes.
Perhaps even more disturbing are the attitudes you hear about in the course of your day —like young men who say that when their partners cried from pain during sex, it was a normal sexual response of young girls!
So, in fact, it seems that the situation for many young girls continues to be horrific, and young boys appear to be growing up to reproduce the oppressive attitudes and behaviours of an age I thought had past.
We all know the story about how girls are taught that we mustn’t show that we know anything about sex if we want to be seen as ‘good girls†(never mind produce a condom at the necessary moment), and that it’s best to let the boys lead the way in the dance of love. Boys, on the other hand, to prove that they are ‘real menâ€, have to show that they have numerous sexual conquests and it’s only a question of ‘persuading†girls (who when they say ‘no†really mean ‘yesâ€) to have sex with them.
Even worse, for many boys it will be difficult to admit that using a condom is a life-saving act when being a ‘real man†is one who takes risks.
These social norms go a long way to explaining the high levels of sexual violence that girls are experiencing on a daily basis in South African schools. Sexual harassment, rape, and the angry labeling of girls as sluts or liars when they dare blow the whistle on the abusers, are a cruel reality for many schoolgirls.
The recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report reveals repeated allegations that teachers engaged in sexual relations with underage girls, often without the schools intervening to sanction them.
Many girls reported how the teacher would abuse his authority and position in order to rape or abuse her. Often teachers pay students for their silence, or offer them good grades.
The fact is that girls are at risk – also from their male peers – at almost anytime and any place: school toilets, empty classrooms and hallways, hostel rooms and dormitories, moving to and from school, during class, during class breaks and after school — all of these are where rapes and harassment take place.
A South African government report in 2001 revealed that from 1996 to 1998, girls aged 17 and under constituted about 40% of reported and attempted rapes nationally. The SAPS have disclosed that 12- to 17-year-old girls account for the highest rape ratio per 100 000 of women, with 471,7 cases.
Neither the national nor provincial departments of education systematically monitor incidents of violence in schools, nor are there data systems that allow crime statistics to be analysed in terms of where the crime was committed. In spite of this, Childline has estimated that one in three South African girls under the age of 16 will be sexually abused, often at school.
What makes matters worse is how boys are convinced that girls are asking for their unwanted sexual attention or actually enjoy it. In a recent study in Gauteng, an unbelievable 50% of male youth said they believed if a girl said no to sex she meant yes.
Nearly a third of boys and girls interviewed in another study stated that forcing someone you know to have sex is not sexual violence. This obviously contributes to the secondary violence which girls are subjected to who have the courage to break the silence.
In spite of the Employment of Educators Act requiring the dismissal of teachers found guilty of serious misconduct, which includes sexual violence or having a sexual relationship with a learner, the HRW report highlights that school officials have often swept these issues under the carpet, often delaying disciplinary action against perpetrators (if they happen at all).
It seems that nobody takes ultimate responsibility for the problem, with schools, government and parents passing the buck between them, leaving the schoolgirls to pay the price.
As part of the National HIV/AIDS Policy for Education (2002), life skills programmes have been incorporated into the school curricula and policies are in place which do not prohibit pregnant girls from attending school. However, the quality and success of the life skills programmes – one of the education sector’s main responses to raising issues of gender, sexuality and negotiation skills with young boys and girls — depends on the worldview and expertise of the teacher giving the subject. Many teachers do not feel adequately prepared to deal the with needs of school students, and far from confronting traditional social norms and beliefs, in fact reproduce gender stereotypes, undermining the very reason for the programme’s existence.
What is clear is that girls in schools need protection and we need to change the very environment that condones and normalizes such violent behaviour. The national and provincial education departments have to enforce what little existing protections there are for young girls, ensure they coordinate with the justice systems and most importantly, move beyond the talk to actually developing a comprehensive policy on sexual violence and harassment at schools.
If girls do not feel schools are a safe place, living with daily threats of violence and ridicule, how are they expected to learn — and more importantly, grow up with a positive self-image and a sense of direction and purpose in the world.
Ten years down the line, girls are in fact being denied their right to education.
Susan Holland-Muter works in the Sexual Health and Rights Programme at the Women’s Health Project. She writes in her personal capacity.