Girl’s dad lashes out at abuse, violation
“IT’S A difficult thing for a man to contain. It’s like a violation, it’s like an attack”.
This was how a Durban father described his reaction to discovering nude photographs and sexually suggestive messages from a 33-yearold teacher, on his 14-year-old daughter’s phone.
“I felt angry. I felt that she had been violated, it was a total abuse,” he said. “But I just resolved myself to channel the anger and the rage that was welling up inside me into a campaign to stop this man.”
The teacher was suspended last week and is scheduled to appear in court today, to face criminal charges relating to sexual grooming of a minor, and child pornography.
The girl’s father said he realised something was wrong when he dropped into his daughter’s play rehearsal one afternoon and discovered the teacher had asked her to stay behind afterwards.
“He was trying to get her alone,” he said.
“I don’t think she realised how evil this all was.”
But the father did and he took his daughter home, where it emerged that her teacher had been sending her inappropriate messages.
“He got more and more seedy as you scrolled down and looked through the chats,” the father said. “And she was clearly uncomfortable.”
He said the teacher portrayed himself as a “father figure” or a counsellor to young girls. And he had exploited that to foster a relationship with his daughter.
“He’d even said to her that he was no longer a ‘womaniser’ and that he was going to wait for her to turn 18 and marry her,” he said.
He said he had heard of similar stories at the school, dating back as far as 40 years ago, and that this teacher
He was trying to get her alone; I don’t think she realised how evil this all was.
might have had transgressions.
The MEC for Education in KwaZulu-Natal, Mthandeni Dlungwana, sent a delegation to visit the school on Friday.
Yesterday, he said the department viewed these matters in a serious light.
Dlungwana said: “As soon as we get any indication that there’s been such an incident, we act swiftly.
“We want to ensure that we protect the pupils and we want to ensure that the parents know their kids are safe in our hands.”
He emphasised that the Sydenham teacher was part of a small minority, adding that the department was going to launch a new programme aimed at making it easier for pupils to report abuse.
“It will allow our pupils to speak to us directly,” he said, “Because they might want to report something but not know how to.”
General secretary for the SA Democratic Teachers Union, Mungwenya Maluleka, said men who had sexual relations with schoolchildren, could not remain in our schools.
“We cannot afford to protect criminals anymore,” Maluleka said. “These are people who are abusing and exploiting the socio-economic situation of our children, because they come from working-class families.” previous