A 13 year old girl was allegedly raped during school hours at Hlanganani Secondary in Block G, Soshanguve. This happened after the victim was allegedly chased out of class by her teacher because she did not do her homework.
The learner was allegedly raped in the nearby bush until she passed out and six boys are suspects.
The school is situated almost at the end of the clean space in block G and it is surrounded by the bush. It is also not in a good condition in terms of fencing as it doesn’t have fencing at the far back.
The school’s principal, Mr Mike Mogolane, said he could not comment on the matter because he reported the matter to the district as well as the Gauteng Department of Education who are now handling the matter with SAPS.
Principal Mogolane said he has since employed people to chop off the grass around the school because the grass has grown faster due to the recent rains.
The community of block G held a meeting on the 21st of February at Falala Community Hall to discuss solutions on how to clean the school and have the school patrolled around the unfenced part during school hours.
When asked about the meeting the Principal said he is not aware of the meeting that was held on the 21st of February. “I’m hearing this for the first time, I was never informed,” he said.
According to a Facebook post by Kgaugelo Mohlala, the school doesn’t have securities or patrollers around the unfenced place. “We arranged a meeting with the school’s SGB and only two members pitched so it was impossible to continue with the meeting as planned.” wrote Ms Mohlala.
She further stated that the children are still traumatized by this incident and they have not received any form of counseling from the department of education. “To me, when a child is raped and our children are not safe in the school premises, it must be an emergency, but in this case, it is business as usual,” she said.
Kgameshi Mashigo, a vendor next to the school said that he heard about the rape incident. “I heard there was a girl who was raped but I don’t know if the matter was reported to the police or not,” he said.
We tried reaching the South African Police Services in Soshanguve for comment on the incident, however they did not come back to us by the time of publishing.
