A total of 271 Swazi school pupils were sexually abused in the month of September (2010), according to official figures released last week.
The Swaziland Ministry of Education and Training said this was the number that contacted a ‘toll free’ phone number it set up to encourage pupils to report abuse.
The number of abuse cases rose from 26 in August.
The Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, reports today (3 November 2010) that the total number of sexual abuse cases recorded by the ministry from January until September was 360.
The ministry said there was a direct link between poverty and sexual abuse.
The report also covered emotional abuse and physicalabuse, mostly, the Times reports, pupils complained about the high number of caning strokes they got from teachers but there were also complaints about the manner they were punished by their parents, who might use fists and other unreasonable forms of punishment.
Thirty children were lined up and publicly whipped in a bizarre corporal punishment ritual at their primary school in Swaziland.
But the school’s principal said people shouldn’t be concerned about it because they get whipped all the time. ‘The children are used to it,’ she said.
The pupils, aged between 11 and 16, at Sibuyeni Primary School were reportedly each whipped more than 20 times for being in ‘love relationships’.
The children were called to a school assembly where they found the principal, members of the school committee, their parents and some teachers, all armed with sticks.
The Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, reports, ‘Desks were strategically placed on the veranda near the assembly point, which were to be used as “sacrifice-tables”. Behind each desk was an adult who was armed with a stick.
‘The children, with the youngest estimated to be 11 years old were ordered to lie flat on their stomachs on top of the desks.
‘The whole exercise which was witnessed by other pupils lasted for about an hour.’
The Times reports that the children were whipped because they were alleged to be in ‘love relationships’.
What seems to have happened is this: One girl had been found ‘standing with a boy’ and when the pair were scolded by an elder in their community they were disrespectful. From this small incident grew a witch hunt at the school in which terrified children were threatened with expulsion if they didn’t name names of pupils involved in ‘love relationships’. All the children named were publicly whipped even though they denied the accusation and no proof was offered of their guilt.
The school’s principal H. Mahlalela told the Times, ‘The children were brought by their parents to the school to be disciplined. The whipping was done mostly by the parents. We only played a small part,’ she said.
Mahlalela added that there was nothing sinister about this because the children were accustomed to being sjam-boked by their parents at the school. ‘The children are used to it,’ she said.
This is not the first time that schools have denied the human rights of children by flogging them. As I reported in March 2009, a nine-year-old primary school child was whipped so badly by her teacher she died of her injuries.
Then there was the case of the sadistic school teachers who lined up to whip 20 children at a primary school. Each Swazi child received 27 lashes from nine teachers who took it in turns to give each child three cuts. The children’s crime? They had been watching two boys fighting.
Another time 18 primary school children were whipped with a piece of pipe on their backsides because they were eating their lunch from buckets.
Corporal punishment is only one of the violations that children suffer in Swaziland. In 2009 I wrote about the plight of Swazi children who live appalling lives of deprivation and abuse. To read more click here.
Last week I wrote about the abused lives children in Swaziland lead.
I commented that hardly a week goes by without news about another atrocity committed against children.
How right I was. Today (7 March 2009) comes news that a nine-year-old primary school child was whipped so badly by her teacher she died of her injuries.
The Swazi News reports the child from the Mafucula area in the Lubombo region was whipped with a sjambok.
In Swaziland teachers are not allowed to inflict corporal punishment on children, only school principals are allowed to and they are forbidden to use whips.
Hardly a week goes by without some news of another atrocity committed against children. The latest reveals that teachers are having sex with their pupils. Last year 100 teachers were investigated on charges of having sex with pupils. That hundred only represents the cases that were reported and dealt with, there is every reason to suspect that many more children are being abused than this number suggests.
According to Muziwethu Mhlanga, Secretary General Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT), one of the reasons teachers get away with child abuse is that parents, especially in rural areas, ‘sold’ their daughters in return for groceries from male teachers.
He told African Eye,‘We have incidents where parents send their daughters to go and clean for a male teacher or tell him to bring his washing so that their daughter can wash for him, or even go to the extent of cleaning his house.’
He said poverty exacerbates the problem.
Mhlanga added, ‘There are a lot of things wrong in this country and we can't only accuse teachers of abusing school children. There are a lot of people in the country who grab young girls against their will to make them wives, while some take advantage of the fact that they are poor and promise to do everything for them (in return for sex).’
Mhlanga is quite right when he says that it is not only teachers who abuse children (sexually and physically).
I have written many times about the plight of Swazi children. They live appalling lives of deprivation and abuse. Here are some of the articles I have written. When you put them altogether they make a depressing picture of the life of the Swazi child.
Four in ten children are so malnourished that their growth is stunted. Click.
Hunger and lack of medicine kill up to one Swazi child in seven before they reach the age of five. Click.
About 3 000 Swazi households are headed by children. Click.
Eight year olds scrap for food on streets of Mbabane. Click.
Two children have been jailed in Swaziland for being vagrants Click.
Police fire live bullets at schoolchildren protesting against their deputy principal. Click.
Twenty teachers lined up to thrash children in a sadistic corporal punishment ritual. Click.
Eighteen primary school children were ‘whipped’ because they were eating their lunch from buckets. Click.
Children are subjected to whipping as punishment by Swazi law courts. Click.
A representative of an international aid agency working in Swaziland called for some Swazi children to be sterilised to stop them having children of their own.Click.
Children get a raw deal in the Swazi Press, where in some cases the reporting of children does not uphold the rights of vulnerable children and the reporting of victimised children further victimises those children. Click.
Sadistic school teachers lined up to whip 20 children at a Swaziland primary school.
Each Swazi child received 27 lashes from nine teachers who took it in turns to give each child three cuts.
The children’s crime? They had been watching two boys fighting.
The Times of Swaziland reported on Monday (10 November 2008) that pupils at a Phonjwane school were forced to undergo the beatings from the nine teachers who stood in a row to assault each child.
The newspaper reported, ‘When this newspaper visited the school, most pupils were heard screaming murder. They were talking about the matter in hushed tones.’
It added, ‘Some pupils were still bearing scars from the beating, even though they were fading.’
Quite rightly the newspaper points out that the teachers acted illegally. The law states that corporal punishment should be meted out by the Principal, or in his or her presence in the staff-room. It also states that a pupil should not be given more than three strokes.
I have written before about how the human rights of children are abused in Swaziland. Even the Swazi Constitution allows children to be beaten and sentences of lashings have been dished out by magistrates to juveniles.
Excessive whippings at Swazi schools happen all the time. In October,the Times reported that 35 pupils of Oslo High School were whipped after a cell phone rang during a lesson. On this occasion a group of teachers illegally beat each member of the class.
The Times reported in both cases parents that demanded answers from the school authorities. I am pleased that the parents were not prepared to put up with it. But they should know that the teachers have acted illegally and instead of going to school principals to complain they should head off to the nearest police station and have each and every one of those teachers charged with assault.
