Pretoria - Two of the three girls who were raped by older boys at Kutumela Molefi Primary School in the Lethabong informal settlement, east of Pretoria last month, are back at school with the alleged perpetrators.
The girls, aged between 7 and 9, had to return to Kutumela Molefi because of lack of transport to take them to other schools, the Department of Education said on Monday.
Department spokeswoman Phumla Sekhonyane said: “We have no scholar transport in the area and the parents have no means of getting their children to any other school. Removing scholars would have meant getting transport specifically for them.”
Sekhonyane said the boys were still attending the same school while the police dealt with the case. “It is a police matter now,” she said.
The decision to allow the minors back into the school where they were confronted with the possibility of seeing their assailants daily flew in the face of Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi’s passionate appeal that alternative arrangements be made to protect the children from further trauma.
During a visit to the school on a fact-finding mission a month after the children had been raped by two boys, Lesufi ordered psycho-social intervention for the girls.
The boys, aged 14 and 15, allegedly tied the girls up and raped them on a sports field after school in June. During a private session with Lesufi, the girls had said they did not want to be in the same school as their alleged rapists, the MEC told the media after he had conducted an inspection of the scene of the rape.
The visibly shaken MEC said the girls appeared scared and required immediate counselling and support.
Lesufi had reacted with horror to reports that school principal Papp Moemetsi had failed to report the incident to the authorities and the police for up to three weeks - the issue only coming to light when one parent discovered police were unaware of it.
Moemetsi had promised the parents an investigation was under way and counselling would be provided.
The father had reported the case to the Boschkop police station which activated child protection unit services. They immediately took the girls for a medical examination. Results indicated they had been raped. A forensic investigation was launched and given 21 days to look into the events and report back.
Lesufi also instructed the district office to investigate the feasibility of having all the children return to the same school at the start of the third term. He said at the time: “As a parent I am hurt, distressed and worried.” He apologised to their parents and said he would not allow their children to become statistics.
The father of one of the girls opted to withdraw his daughter at the start of the current term, saying: “I cannot subject her to the trauma of going back to the school where she was brutally assaulted, nor can I stand by and let her experience the horror of seeing those boys every day,” he said on Monday.
He found transport to take his daughter to a school a short distance away from the informal settlement.
Pretoria News