Education is one of the key Millennium Development Goals and it is critical to the development of South Africa’s democracy. The recent Jules rape case has brought the idea that our children aren’t safe in their schools to everyone’s attention. This case is particularly complex and horrifying because of the reported reactions of other learners and of the teacher entrusted with protecting children while they are in schools. Unfortunately, this one case is just the tip of the iceberg.
School sexual bullying is only one form of the bullying that children face in schools. According to clinical psychologist Rafiq Lockhart bullying in our schools is a general problem and has always been around. Lockhart thinks that bullying in any form harms the victim for many years to come because humiliation for a child is extremely painful and they are not well-equipped to deal with it. Similarly, those who observe it might not know what to do. Peer pressure is a powerful thing and many children would rather be part of a circle than outside of it and face bullying themselves.
Sexual bullying, which includes exhibitionism, sexual harassment or sexual physical contact, is a growing problem in South Africa which I argue has allowed a rape culture to persist. When we speak of sexual bullying we are speaking of our boy and girl children being exposed to early sexualisation, and harm. The problem with sexual bullying in particular is that it doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It is founded in a system of problematic myths and norms about sex that children learn from adults.
It’s difficult to track the prevalence of this abuse, but a study by the CSVR suggests that school violence in general is a worrying trend in South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique. School sexual bullying is a form of violence that must be taken seriously by parents, and staff.
There are symptoms that you can look out for that might indicate that your child is being harassed or abused at school. When it is linked to sexual bullying, often these signs are non-verbal. Children can become withdrawn, significantly change how they dress, become hesitant about going to school or don’t want to tell you anything about their day.
NGOs like Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust are engaged in schools by conducting peer education training. This type of training helps to make learners aware of the positive social norms that prevent rape and sexual bullying, and can encourage learners to work together in negotiating their understanding of sex and sexuality.
But where do we begin? Well, the adage goes that change starts at home. If the youth of South Africa can’t tell the difference between sex and rape, then as Colleen Lowe Morna says there is something wrong. It’s not easy to talk about sex baby, but it must be done.
What else? How do you think we can tackle this problem? What role do teachers play? Where do we start? What do you think?
The only thing that I feel certain of is that if children engage in behaviour that is abusive in schools, and this behaviour is not corrected, rape and sexual violence will remain a problem in South Africa.
Very valid concerns and well put. Some of the sociological research shows interesting trends. One is the correlation between males without father figures and sexual violence. SA has a culture of ‘absent fathers’ that has rarely been discussed as it opens uncomfortable questions. There is certainly a link with poverty, but this is not the only factor. Other countries with similar or greater povery levels have lower rates of single parent, absent father households. What is the reason for this? I have no idea, but it begs more research.
Jennifer, maybe it’s the reverse; maybe the culture of ‘openess of sexuality, and the prevalence of rape” allow? encourage? the sexual bullying, in other words, maybe the sexual bullying is part of the sexuality of the culture.
Jennifer, I have now read the Colleen Lowe Morna column, and I can still only ask :What the heck were the teachers thinking, in not stopping this. Who’s in charge? Or…is this “merely” what happens. Mbecki was offended by ‘the west’ thinking that African men couldn’t keep their trousers buttoned…how does Jules High School challenge this thinking?
Sub Judice, you make a really good point about deadbeat dads. The reason for all of this is the acceptance by the people.
I’ve purposefully avoided commenting on your previous articles, since I believe in your honest intentions in speaking out against the abhorrent crime of rape. However, I have to draw the line on this blog.
Firstly, I’d be hesitant to believe anything from likes of Colleen Lowe Morna who insulted the majority of world cultures (African, Chinese, Indian, Japanese…) where polygamy is tolerated and also sometimes embraced, by claiming that polygamy causes AIDS!!! http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-02-10-dangerous-liaisons
Secondly, your constant references to SA culture as a “rape culture” is insulting, demeaning and myopic given your total lack of acknowledgement that rape is violent crime that affects ALL developed countries and like SA this phenomenon is driven by a combination of factors including our inefficient legal system (stacked with apartheid-era judges), ramping up of our police force to serve the majority since they only served the minority white community in the past, reforming our education system that previously indoctrinated blacks into believing they were inferior, the history of past brutality of rape against black servants, our present glaring socioeconomic disparity etc. etc.
Painting SA as the “rape capital of the world” is counterproductive, similar to the way our previously privileged want use the media to propagate the myth of “white genocide”.
continued…
Thirdly, the use of rape by our media elite (Zapiro etc) to stereotype and demean political opponents simply desensitizes us against this crime that everyone would like to see eradicated! Imagine kids reading the newspaper and stumbling on Zapiro’s famous gang-rape cartoons.
Fourthly, calling our kids “sexual bullies” rather than acknowledging that its actually “school bullying” and our education system are really the issues to address, shows that you’ve lost the plot! To view an entire culture, school system etc. through the lens of sexual deviancy is also indicative of inner perversion. Isn’t it?
And the age-old practices in one-sex boarding schools that build youth to become leaders of industry & commerce and expatriates? Jen, this has been going on for far longer than you’ve been alive. Been through it, never forgotten. Which is why my kids never will go to boarding school. Your last para is important; look, read about and listen to the antics of the very privileged middle-aged and their children. Sub Judice mentions ‘absent fathers’, which doesn’t necessarily correlate with poverty. I enjoy your articles, although I wonder if perhaps sometime you might wish to write about something other than women and abuse. What happens after the troubles have stopped?
Well said I must say.This problem or rather pattern of behaviour has long been prevalent and starting somewhere will be a good point.I like many other adults had mixed feelings about the issue but if truth be told we as a society should start really examining our ways,morals and patterns of life.If a child does something or behaves somehow that owes itself to how that kid is being brought up and what is being planted in their minds and that unfortunately comes out in cases like this.I should say lets start first by speaking to our kids and instilling in them what will make us proud one day not ashamed and this goes to even what we buy for them and what we expose them to.Its time we start being adults who look after their kids holisticly.
Thank you for your article, and your support of women’s issues. Unsurpisingly, “Dave Harris” has missed the point completely. Accusing you of inner perversion is both nasty and silly.
Start at the very beginning as the song goes– well devleoped educational initiatives with books and programmes infused into teacher and parent educational initiatives. Many societies can be drawn on for programmes that have worked and not worked. Sex education civil peace etc. is important just keep doing it more cool will help. Advocacy and creative ways out are needed. Young people are being let down for the 10th generation this century in SA on this issue. Our generational divide has even shortened back to the 1900′s as a result of reduced life expectancy and an uneducated population not certificated education but life education. Survival is what one generation tries to offer the next.There is an awakening, however, despite the very harsh public setbacks. Mbeki’s rule caused great ignorance to prevail but civil society, many good South African teachers, parents and the ministry of health in particular are turning things around its just a trickle but trickles are important. A bottled up youth is building dangerously SA’s population and youth boom with a poor ratio of adults to children is facing a historical challenge witnessed in very few places. There’s a world of Clockwork Orange or Clockwork Naartjie that needs to be brought in from the cold of anomie and alienation. William Golding would be hard put to describe its dark potential our tabloids revel in it and sell papers.Leadership at every level challenged like never before. There are ways forward none of them