Sex abuse in school: The silent epidemic
Many learners suffer silently from sexual abuse either from fellow learners or the teachers they are entrusted to.
What you need to know:
- There is a general lack of recent official data on the menace.
- Only 40 per cent of the victims told someone about it.
When *Peter’s daughter asked her parents to transfer her from her school while in Form One, they did not take her seriously as she did not give them a convincing answer.
They could not imagine hunting for a new school just a few months after their daughter *Agnes had secured admission to a much-sought-after school in Central Kenya.
They talked her into going back to the school. At the time, her grades were consistent with her good performance in the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations that got her admission to the school attended by some prominent leaders in various fields in Kenya.
Agnes stopped asking to be transferred from the school. However, as time went by, she became withdrawn and her grades tanked.
“In Form Two, she repeated her request for a transfer. This time round, she was more resolute that she wouldn’t go back to that school. I should have listened more keenly and taken action. I now regret my lack of insight,” Peter told Nation.
Agnes did not report back to school when other learners did so and is now seeing a professional counsellor to assist her get back to her former self.
She has revealed that her trouble with some of her schoolmates started when she turned down offers to be introduced to lesbianism.
That’s when the bullying and threats started but she was afraid of speaking up. Instead, she turned to self-harm; just to attract her parents’ attention that she wanted out of the school.
The learner is among many others who suffer silently from abuse either from fellow learners or the teachers they are entrusted to.
There is a general lack of recent official data on the menace. The Violence Against Children Survey, 2019 and released in 2020 was the last nationally representative survey conducted by the government.
Suffering in silence
It observes that among the 15.6 per cent of females who experienced childhood sexual violence, nearly two-thirds (62.6 per cent) experienced multiple incidents before age 18. Also, only 40 per cent of the victims told someone about it with the rest suffering in silence.
The Ministry of Education describes sexual harassment as “any unwelcome, usually repeated and unreciprocated sexual advances, unsolicited sexual attention, demand for sexual access of favours, sexual innuendo or other physical conduct of a sexual nature, display of phonographic material.”
Another parent, *Kigen told of how his son in Form One in a school in Kisumu County was molested by some boys in Form Three but kept quiet about it.
The father only learnt about it from a classmate when the schools were on half-term break.
“They inserted objects in his backside and threatened to harm him if he reported. The management of the school took him to hospital but no one told me about it. The boy has even threatened to kill himself,” he said.
Another student from a school in Nairobi was suspended from school when he reported some boys for attempted sexual abuse. In a letter seen by Nation, the boy was instead accused of promoting the LGBTQI agenda in the school.
Ms Loice Noo, a counselling psychologist who is also a former secondary school teacher, told Nation that she encounters many cases of children who are victims of sexual abuse and bullying in her practice.
“There have been many cases especially post-Covid-19. I think many children were exposed to a lot harmful material during the lockdown. If a school isn’t strict on handling sexual bullying either by teachers or other students, it continues. The perpetrators gang up and can make life very difficult for the victim,” she said.
Ms Noo added that the abuse can be “subtle” means like a touch, close hugging or a kiss and because the learners are in their puberty, their bodies may also appreciate the act and not register it as abuse.
Another girl, *Yvonne told Nation how she suffered sexual bullying at the hands of fellow students when she attended one of Kenya’s oldest national schools.
The three other girls she shared a cubicle with were involved in lesbian activities with girls from other dormitories but Yvonne refused to be recruited.
Soiled sanitary pads
“They would come at night and chase me out of the cubicle. I’d go to sit in the dark in the common room until they concluded their business. They’d mess up my bedding with soiled sanitary pads collected from the bins just to punish me. I had no one to talk to,” she said.
The bullying extended to rude sexual jibes that eventually affected her well-being in school. Yvonne sat her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations and scored a mean grade of D plain despite having gained admission into the prestigious school by merit, having been one of the top students from Thika Sub-county in the KCPE exams.
She attributes her poor performance to the suffering that she endured in silence.
Ms Noo said that some learners who choose silence resort to self-harm, pretend to be sick or drop grades to get the attention of parents that they want to be moved out of the school. She observed that some parents are “unreasonable” and may cause chaos at schools and leave the children behind, endangering their safety.
“In such cases, we check the institutional strength to protect the children. What made them not shout? Where possible, we recommend a transfer but some who have strong willpower actually go back and challenge those practices and become champions against sexual bullying,” Ms Noo said.
She disclosed that most cases of sexual abuse go unreported out of fear and shame. Some effects of sexual abuse in schools during adolescence may include anxiety, delinquency, early sexual initiation, eating disorders and low self-esteem.
In October last year, 32 civil society organisations wrote to the World Bank demanding accountability for allegations of sexual abuse by teachers at the Bridge International Schools in Kenya, a project that was partially funded by the bank’s International Finance Corporation. The partnership has since been terminated.
TSC de-registers teachers
The Compliance Advisor Ombudsman of the bank said the corporation had failed to deal with the allegations or to stop the abuse despite having been made aware of 21 cases between 2014 and 2021.
The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) dismisses and de-registers teachers implicated in sexual offences involving learners, banning them as ineligible to teach anywhere else, including in private schools.
According to the TSC director for legal, labour and industrial affairs, Mr Cavin Anyuor, the employer relies on a low threshold of proof to fire the teachers since it is not a judicial court.
TSC periodically publishes lists of teachers it strikes off its register. Although it does not provide details of the offences, the majority of the culprits are male teachers found guilty of what is commonly referred to as ‘CK’, initials for carnal knowledge.
“When it’s only men in the list, you can only guess it’s because of ‘CK’. Generally men are the majority. Rarely do we hear of females because it never goes on record. The boys, especially in secondary school might view advances by female teachers as an advantage to be proud of,” said Mr Johnson Nzioka, the chair of the Kenya Primary Schools Heads Association.
In its last list of de-registered teachers in August 2023, 73 teachers (all male) were dismissed.
“While I may not have received a specific complaint, I can’t dispute the occurrence because this is common knowledge it happens. Even teachers suffer sexual abuse especially in relationships with their bosses,” Mr Nzioka said.
In 2020, the Court of Appeal affirmed an earlier finding of the High Court that the TSC is responsible for teachers who sexually abused learners while under its employ. The commission was ordered to pay Sh5 million in damages to two learners.
*Because of the sensitive nature of this story, we have left out the real names of the learners and their parents.
