#GPSchoolsAbuse: DA urges Premier to fast-track hotline for learners
9 November 2017
The DA has written to both Gauteng Premier, David Makhura, and Education MEC, Panyaza Lesufi, to request that the Premier’s promised dedicated hotline for reporting gender-based violence in the province is taking shape and fast.
We are pleased that the Premier heeded the DA’s call to create a free, confidential toll-free platform in which learners can report sexual abuse cases and any other forms of abuse at schools in the province.
Last week, the Premier in response to my question on the scope of the “task team of MECs” who are mandated to deal with the scourge of sexual abuse at our schools, said the special committee will focus on a ‘comprehensive plan’. Despite this intervention, we still believe that the only credible way this mater can be addressed is through a fully-fledged commission of inquiry, which only the Premier has the constitutional power to establish.
The to-be-established hotline for reporting gender-based violence is one of a few interventions promised by the Premier, as he denied many learners and victims in Gauteng the opportunity to speak out against sexual abuse and any other form of violence by not appointing a commission of inquiry.
In an attempt to try and contact the Gauteng Department of Education’s existing hotline number 0800 000 798, the consultant who deals with school admissions provided me with another toll free number to report sexual abuse, however when I dialled this number, I was put through to the Western Cape Department of Education’s Safe Schools Hotline.
This shows that the Gauteng Department of Education does not take the reporting of sexual abuse seriously; departmental officials must be trained to redirect calls of such a sensitive nature.
We must take a stand and work together to ensure our children are kept safe from sex-pests who prowl amongst our young, vulnerable and defenceless children.
It is imperative that this hotline be established sooner rather than later, as learners, educators and parents alike need this channel to ensure sex-pests face the full might of the law.
Our vulnerable and at-risk youth deserve a new beginning and our full protection.
Issued by Khume Ramulifho, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Education, 9 November 2017
