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For about three months three times a year, parents entrust their children to teachers and children tend to spend more time at school than at home, especially for those at boarding schools.
It is for this reason that schools should not only be seen as safe places but be the safe places. In our previous edition we carried a story in which a school in Umguza District, Mahlothova Secondary School was in the news over the story of alleged abuse of a school girl by a teacher. It is not the first such story that we have heard about schools, especially those in outlying areas, and we are quite sure this will not be the last that we shall hear of it.
The script is usually familiar. An opinion leader violates a girl child, the matter is swept under the carpet to protect the culprit through bribing the parents of the victim.
The setting may be different, and there could be slight variations, but those in positions of authority tend to abuse them and take away the rights of the under-privileged.
In the case that we reported we learnt that the teacher in question seemed to enjoy the protection of the authorities at the school who were worried about the impact of the scandal on the “good name” of the school. And these are the places that we send our children to, with the belief that the teachers are parenting the children in their real parents’ absence during the school term.
We hope the Ministry of Education gets to the bottom of the matter and unravels even all the cover-up attempts.
Smoking out child abusers where they are spotted is what will give schools a good name, not protecting them by taking advantage of their poor parents and promising to marry under-age children. The community should also rise up and reject such moves on the part of any adult that seeks to abuse children and it is quite worrying that there are allegations that this was not the first case at the school.
What is even more worrying are the scars that the girl child was left with, being disbelieved after being violated to a point of contemplating suicide? Will she ever recover from the trauma, and who will help her through counselling and rehabilitation so that she learns to trust again. Schools and other institutions do not demand good names, they should earn them through their good deeds which include excelling in their key result area — moulding the young into responsible, morally upright productive citizens.
This is all we ask for. We do not need the corrupt tendencies of tampering with evidence and teaching children to lie to investigators.
We hope the truth shall eventually come out and many children’s lives saved. We urge the community to blow the whistle on all forms of abuse and community leaders, and parents to be wary of abuse disguised as charity.
Online Reporter
derick.khumalo