Commission on Gender Equality: briefing

Appendix 2:
The Committee’s Media Strategy

JOINT MONITORING COMMITTEE ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF QUALITY OF LIFE AND STATUS OF YOUTH CHILDREN AND DISABLED PERSONS

MEDIA STRATEGY
To ensure that we truly represent the sectors we represent. We will be embarking on an ongoing media strategy.

The objectives:
To keep in touch with the people on the ground
To keep Disabled People, Children and Youth on delivery of services to date
To keep the sectors informed on what is happening in Parliament
To be available to take any questions, advice, concerns that the sector have
A strategy to monitor flow of information. Access to services and how to improve them

Our approach
Committee members will be deployed to:
Provinces
Languages
Understanding of the issues that includes policies of government
Availability

Our targets
Community based radio stations
SABC
Print media
SABC television
Sector formations

We are targeting:
Youth programmes
Children's programmes as well as
Talk shows

Our strategy:
The committee will manage the topics to be presented by the member. We will be hosts once a month to the programmes

These opportunities will be used to:
Give a report on government progress
Presentation of a specific issue which is a concern to the sector

Conclusion:
Since one of our key responsibilities is to perform oversight duties, this programme will serve as a tool. We will also use the concerns raised to influence policies; follow-up will be forwarded to the nearest ANC Constituency office for further resolution.

Each and every member of Parliament will be given a summary of issues, which come from the sector.

Each message will be developed by the committee to suite the particular target and be in line with the programme of that particular radio or television station.

Appendix 3:
Molo Songololo’s submission

Commission On Gender Equality’s Report to the Joint Monitoring Committee on the Status of Children, Youth and Disabled Persons.

Due to the short notice, the following is a very brief summary of the issues concerning children, in particular the girl child and issues of gender in the area of Molo Songololo work.

Molo Songololo is a child rights organisation that concerns itself with the survival, development and protection of children and their rights. Establish in 1980, to breakdown apartheid barriers and promote children’s voices; Molo Songololo has again much insight into the problems facing girl children and women.

Despite the political advances we have made in the establishment of our new democracy based on equality, respect for human dignity, non-discrimination and freedom of association, the position of the girl child and women have not changed much.

In general the girl child and women continue to find themselves discriminated against, not taken seriously, their rights limited, treated unfairly, exploited, denied opportunities and rendered powerless against sexual abuse and exploitation.

The greatest fear that many a pre-teen and teenage girl child these days is to know that she will be raped before the age of 18 years. The nightmare of it all is that she only hopes that she will not be killed in the process.

Attached find a document presented to the Western Cape Education Department at a seminar on Gender and Sex-based Violence in Schools. The paper clearly illustrates how our education system and schools work against girls and in fact contribute to their abuse, oppression and exploitation.

Our schools should be institutions of learning, development and a place where all children feel valued, respected, given opportunities, treated fairly, supported, feel safe and protected. Instead they are battlefields where girl children simply stand no chance of survival if they don’t submit, know their place and tow the line. From early on they are forced to carry the burdens of the mothers, fathers, brothers and little sisters.

The stipulations of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women need to be implemented with urgency. The future of the girl child in particular, will determine the future of our new democracy…


At present Molo Songololo is very much concern at the increased levels of sexual abuse and exploitation against children. Reports suggest that girl children are more vulnerable, and because of this are more threatened with HIV & Aids infections.

Our investigation into the trafficking of children and women for sexual purposes are revealing shocking results. The following concerns we highlight in respect of children and young women:
- The abduction and sale of children and young women
- Children and young women being held captive, physically and sexually abused and drugged
- Young women and children being induced to commit crimes by their captors
- Young women and children being commercially and sexually exploited
- Young women and children being trafficked
- Lack of enabling legislation and police evidence gathering techniques to apprehend and ensure the prosecution and conviction of those who are abusing, abducting, holding children captive and instigating children to commit crimes under duress.
- Lack of appropriate intervention strategies to rescue children and young women in vulnerable and precarious situations
- Lack of places of safety for children involved in prostitution
- Lack of response to pleas for intervention and assistance by government departments and organisations rendering social services from children and young women involved in prostitution and situations in which they are sexually.
- No legislation exists specifically to make it an offence to traffic children and women for sexual purposes.


In conclusion, Molo Songololo urges the Commission on Gender Equality to give urgent priority to the pre-teen and teenage girl child. Furthermore, the Joint Monitoring Committee on the Status of Children, Youth and Disabled Persons must ensure for the effective implementation of appropriate legislation, reform of the law and monitoring of services to protect the rights of the girl child.

The implementation and monitoring of the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the South African Constitution, The Child Care Amendment Act and the Proposed Sexual Offences Bill, and other international instruments is crucial for the survival, development and protection of children, in particular the girl child.

Furthermore, Molo Songololo strongly suggests that the Joint Monitoring Committee on the Status of Children, Youth and Disabled Persons enable a process of dialogue with civil society that’s informative, pro-active and intervening.

Lastly Molo Songololo recommends that the Joint Monitoring Committee on the Status of Children and Disable Persons, broaden its mandate to hold government departments, ministers and officials responsible for the failure to implement policies and programmes in the best interest of the child, the child’s rights and that promote gender equality and non-discrimination.

Patric Solomons 11 February 2000
Molo Songololo


Annexure:
Seminar on Gender Equity in Education
Western Cape Education Department
29 Sept – 1 Oct 1999


Gender and Sex-based violence in schools

Locate sex-based violence in schools with the content of the culture of learning and teaching; i.e. discipline, management and how this relates to gender.
Discuss child abuse and sexual harassment and how this relates to gender


Gender – basically refers to a person’s sex, sexual relations, power and sexual identity.
In general children acquire gender identities through birth, socialisation, cultural, traditional and religious beliefs and practices, and political ideologies.

From the moment we are born, we are given sexual identities that parents associate with our sex and have expectations based on this identity.

Boys are given certain rights and claim power to meet these expectations of parents, family and society, to be tough, rough and strong.

The rights of us girls are limited and we are stripped of power to make any decisions about ourselves or our future.

Despite this, both girls and boys remain dependent on adults for their survival, protection and development until the age of maturity when they gain full membership to the human race.

Until then, children are easy prey for adult sexual frustration, greed, need, and desire. We are sexually harassed, manipulated, abused, sold, bought, kidnapped, raped and murdered.

Recently in Cape Town, seven children under the age of 13 were raped in one weekend. The frightening aspect of this is that it is the norm rather than the exception. Everyday children from as young as a few months are sexually abused, raped and murdered; girls as well as boys fall victim to one of the worst human rights violations.


However, because of our weaker position in society, us girls are more vulnerable to sexual harassment, abuse and exploitation. In most cases, the child knows the perpetrator. It is often someone the child learnt to trust, like a father, family member, friend of the family or even a teacher at school. Reports also reveal that perpetrators are getting younger and younger.

It often happens that teachers detect and expose the sexual harassment, abuse and exploitation of children. Numerous reports suggest that teachers often are the only hope that many children have to free themselves from a sexual abusive situation.

Because of the high incidents of child sexual abuse and exploitation, many schools embarked on educational, safety and life-skills programmes to equip children to protect themselves better and make the school a safe environment that the child can trust…

However, many teachers and principals are unable to deal effectively with the ongoing sexual harassment, abuse, exploitation and rape of pupils within the school environment. At first they respond with shock and disbelief when an incident is exposed. But what really happens in our schools…

During an interview for an article for the Molo Songololo Magazine, with a group of 10 to 13-year-old girls, they were asked, "What is your greatest fear?" One 11-year-old responded that her greatest fear is to know that she will be raped one day. She further explained that her fear is not so much the rape, but the fact that she might be murdered in the process.

Another girl explained that "now-a-days if you refuse to have sex with boys, they gang up on you, rape you and won’t think twice about killing you to shut you up".

In another interview that focussed on bullying, a 9-year-old boy reveals how he and his buddies tease, bribe and beat up the ‘class sissy’. The main reason for this is because "… he is not a boy". Meaning he doesn’t behave like a boy and therefore is offensive.

About two years ago, a 9-year-old girl was gang raped by fellow students whilst almost half the school came to watch and cheer them on. The victim was removed from school and the perpetrators continued their schooling.

Similarly when a 15-year-old student fell pregnant and revealed that she was raped on school premises by two fellow students, the victim was removed from school and made out to have asked for it.

When the 17-year-old "school slut" was manipulated by her class teacher into performing sexual acts with him, and then told the principle and class, she was made out to be a lying-attention-seeking-over-sexed-teenager.

The repeated harassment and beating of a 14-year-old boy by a gang of fellow girl students drove him to commit suicide. The principal and his class teacher told him that he was too soft and must stand up to the girls.

When a class teacher discovered a 13-year-old girl’s love letters to another girl, he and the class publicly ridiculed and teased the two girls to a point where one of them tried to commit suicide.

All these incidents are the result of a schooling system that fails to provide positive gender teaching and non-violent teaching environments. Instead our schools continue to place increased emphasis on us girls as the weaker sex to render us inferior and thus be treated as such by boys.

The enforcement of the macho boy further leads to a masculinity where battering, harassment, and treating girls as sex objects occurs, sometimes resulting in attitudes that forced sex (like rape) is okay.

In other words, our schools give more attention to boys and reinforce gender divisions. Boys dominate the space at school – in classroom, the playground and down the corridors.

Boys harass us girls verbally and physically; they tease and sprawl over gangways. They lean over girls’ desks, touch, pinch, and prod them. They poke pencils up through holes in stools while girls are sitting on them. They always try putting the blame of class disturbances on girls. Boys conspire to play tricks on girls and spread rumours to reflect their sexual dominance over girls.

From the examples raised earlier, it is clear that when boys are sexually active; they are respected, looked up to and generally encouraged. With us girls it is different; we are ridiculed, teased and suffer much bad mouthing. In fact we are called ‘sluts’.

Girls and boys who ‘don’t fit’ in the macho-boy scheme of things suffer continuous sexual harassment and violence at the hands of the bullies and are easy prey for gangs who operate in the classroom and playground.

We are forced into buying protection to be free of harassment and abuse with money, food, and sweets and doing homework. We live in constant fear of being beaten up. Principals and teachers provide no recourse as severe punishment deals with any reporting.
The abusers and perpetrators arm themselves with knives, drugs, guns and other objects to increase their power. They use these weapons to entice, threaten, manipulate and force their victims into a position of powerlessness.

In extreme cases, they not only terrorise their fellow students, but teachers and principles also fall victim to their reign of terror. Where they are organised into gangs, they often try to force the school population into silence and complacency by using fear and intimidation.

A spot survey with students from 5 different primary and high schools, on what they feel and think about the rules at school, revealed clearly that most students think that the rules are stupid and have no respect for it. Almost all the girls surveyed feel that the rules at school favour boys and often allowance are made in their favour.

Likewise, most students surveyed felt that the way in which discipline gets instilled is not effective and in most cases unfair. There remains a high incident of corporal punishment, particularly in primary schools. Although pupils realise that this is illegal, and say that culprits are indifferent to such punishment.

One respondent said that to her it seems as if the culprits are hardened and get worse when corporal punishment is inflicted upon them. The boys were quick to suggest that legal action should be taken against teachers who beat them with a cane or stick.

In general all agreed that school rules are important to maintain order and help the school to function. They feel that a code of conduct must be negotiated with students and the same with disciplinary procedures and actions.

When it came to the issue of sexual harassment, abuse and exploitation, the students could not come up with any clear solutions. The girls felt strongly that they need to be treated fairly and with respect. The boys, despite agreeing that girls get a raw deal and must be treated equally, still feel that girls are different to them.

It is precisely this perception of difference that boys use in their justification for sexually harassing, abusing and exploiting girls and boys who do not fit in. This perceived difference is based on the power relation between male masculinity and female femininity, where girls only become wives and mothers; and boys control, dominate and provide.

Sadly though, our schools are not designed to combat these attitudes and behaviours. Teachers, principals and the very structure of the school system continue to further entrench the inequalities between the sexes.

A 13-year-old student explains that "they" referring to teachers, "…have no clue where we (teenagers) are at. The other day our principal spoke to us, first the girls and then the boys. He told us girls about how we shouldn’t dress in a revealing way, that we must always sit with our legs crossed and always behave in a manner that is lady-like. If we do this the boys will leave us alone." Asked what she thinks of it; she said, "It’s the worst bull-shit I’ve ever heard?"

It is clear that, despite the advances we have made in Human Rights and the equality provisions in our constitution, and sexual relations between children and young people continue to be suppressed; sexual relations other than heterosexual, are given full shock-horror treatment.

Studies reveal that the denial and suppression of our sexuality render us more vulnerable to sexual harassment, abuse and exploitation that have lasting consequences on our future and us.

Why is it that we can teach a child how to read and write, count and subtract, and how to become independent; but we are unable to teach them about the "birds and the bees".

Children’s sexual curiosity, exploration and development are often suppressed. We are told lies about anything related to sex. Several of the students interviewed reflected a prevailing attitude that sex is not right, that there is something wrong with it.

One student said that when he had his first wet dream, he was so shocked he thought he had a terrible illness. He went to his mother for comfort and told her about it, she swore at him and told him he is evil and that God will punish him. He still believes that God punish him for his sins every time he has a wet dream.

An 8-year-old-girl-asked her mother what a virgin was and she told her she did not know. When she was 10 she asked her mother what it felt like to fuck. The mother’s shocking answer was not to use that disgusting word and slapped her child on the back of the head.

A 14-year-old-boy got caught masturbating in the school toilet. The teacher sent him to the principal after giving him a lecture on how bad he is and told him to wash his dirty hands. The principle caned the boy and sent him to detention.

With her first period, a 10-year-old-girl, went to her teacher for help because she did not know what was happening to her. The teacher immediately thought that she had been raped. He then paraded the child out of the class, down the corridor to the staff room, into the principle’s office, and eventually to the police station. Only to find out that the child was having her first period.

The child returned to the school the next day with no explanation to the child or her classmates to the commotion that took place the day before. Now she believes that if you are raped and you don’t bleed, then it is not really rape.

Several students revealed that the sex education they received at school is out-dated and not adequate. They say parents and teachers feel that if they have proper knowledge about sex and sexual relations, they are or will become sexually active.

Sex-based violence in our schools need to be confronted with an honest open approach that recognises students as sexual beings who are at an important stage of sexual development, curiosity and exploration. More importantly our schools will have to find new ways of negotiating with students solutions against sex-based violence and violence in general.

A policy of non-discrimination, fair treatment and equality, to fight against racism, harassment, bullying, abuse, and gender discrimination should be considered for our schools. Such a policy should facilitate for an ongoing programme that engages the school community in ongoing debate in building "positive images" for students and the school.

A gender and sexuality education policy should also assist teachers to prevent anti-lesbian and anti-gay name-calling, attitudes and behaviour, in the same way as they should prevent racist and sexist remarks, attitudes and behaviour. More importantly, gay and lesbian students and teachers who choose to be open about their sexuality must be given appropriate support.

The challenges our schools now face on the eve of the new millennium is to lay down solid positive building blocks based on the human rights principles within our constitution and meet the curriculum obligations in providing sound education and vocation for South African students.

It is encouraging to see teachers and local education authorities are at last beginning to tackle these challenges. Already many have found that our cultural and religious diversities can be obstacles in the teaching, supporting and empowering of students against sex-based violence at schools.

Parents and teachers, motivated by cultural and religious beliefs, often complain or suppress sexuality education. However, we need to find creative ways of overcoming these obstacles. To turn a blind eye is not the answer.

There is an urgent need to develop new curriculum materials to counter the "irrelevant and damaging sex-education" and increased levels of violence and sexual harassment, abuse and exploitation in many of our schools today.


Schools can begin to…

Make relevant information on sexuality available in the school libraries, in the form of posters, leaflets, books and "pulp" romances.

Encourage teachers to discuss sexuality where it is relevant and appropriate in other lessons.

Organise regular discussion for students on sexuality and provide skilled counsellors who can discuss this issue with students.

Encourage teachers to set school projects for students on issues of sexuality

Run campaigns at schools against sexual harassment, abuse and exploitation.

Look at materials used in teaching and remove those that are overtly heterosexist, homophobic, racist and promote violence.

Campaign for sexuality education and in-service training of all teachers and staff.

Include sexuality education and training in the curriculum of student teachers.

Campaign to make our schools a free and safe environment for students, teachers and staff.

Molo Songololo
Prepared by: Patric Solomons
Presented by: Zenia Phigeland
Date: 1 October 1999