In a recent interview, Ethics Manager of the South African Council of Educators (SACE) George Moroasui, mentioned that a lot of the cases within the 11 287 teenage girls that are reported as pregnant are the results of non-consensual sexual encounters.
The report which revealed the staggering number of young girls, aged between ten- and nineteen-years-old, also revealed the horrifying revelation that 11 teachers were terminated from their teaching positions after it was discovered that they had impregnated some of their learners.
11 confirmed-guilty perpetrators seems small in comparison to the large number of 11 287 cases. Moroasui attributes this to the number of cases that are left unresolved due to the lack of cooperation between parents of the victims, the victims themselves and the relevant authorities.
In South Africa, anyone under the age of eighteen is considered a child, but the Sexual Offences Act lists the age of consent as sixteen and older for all genders and sexual orientations. Laws dictating the ages of consent mainly exist to protect children from sexual predation and exploitation.
The law further states that no child under the age of 12 can consent to sex. Any sexual act with a child under the age of 12 years old is considered statutory rape or sexual assault. In the context of the above-mentioned report, a lot of girls falling within the relevant age demographic could not give consent and are therefore victims of rape.
Schools are meant to serve as a place of safety for all children, but that safety is compromised when predatory educators and older community members take advantage of a child's youth and vulnerability.
South Africa's prevalent culture of "blessers" and "sugar daddies" contributes to the manipulation tactics older men use to prey on vulnerable school girls which can lead to the high rates of teen pregnancies South Africa is currently facing.
Often, the discussion of teen pregnancies places majority of the blame on the girls who are now carrying a child, ignoring the immorality of older men and educators in positions of power who actively chose to pursue and groom these young girls, and who played a role in getting the situation to where it is now.
In 2021, Limpopo's Health MEC Phophi Ramathuba bluntly told schoolgirls to "open your books and close your legs"; a statement which went viral online and prompted the Health MEC to receive some heavy backlash. She was called out for putting the burden of sexual responsibility solely on girls.
Victim blaming is such a normative and everyday part of our thinking about gender-based violence that it often goes unnoticed and unchallenged.
It's rarely noticed how the media reports on sexual assault, rape or the murder of a woman or a girl, the focus is primarily on the woman or girl's behaviour – who she was out with, what she was wearing, and a myriad of other choices she had made – suggesting she was to blame for what was done to her, deflecting attention away from the perpetrators of the violence.
In a country that has one of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world and, with a rate of femicide five times the global average, continuing this kind of pervasive victim blaming will hinder us from eradicating gender-based violence in our society.
Government introduced the Basic Education Pregnancy Policy in December of 2021 in order to deal with the growing number of girl children pregnant while still in school. The Policy requires schools to report girls to the police if they are under the age of sixteen and pregnant, and if the father of the baby is older than sixteen.
The 11 teachers were found guilty of a number of sexual offences and have been declared as "unfit to work with children" and have been removed from the Register of Educators. Although the SACE and the Department of Basic Education (DBE) are interrelated, the DBE has it's own investigative and criminal procedures to follow that are separate from the SACE, while the SACE doesn't have the same authority.
Only a court of law has the legal means to register the guilty teachers as sexual offenders, but the Provincial Departments of Education has a responsibility to report the cases to the SACE.
Sexual consent means agreeing to take part in any kind of sexual activity. Consent should be given before sexual activity occurs. Any sexual activity without consent constitutes rape or sexual assault. It is important that we educate ourselves and our children on what sexual consent is.
