TEACHER ACCUSED OF ABDUCTING SCHOOLGIRLS

EZULWINI – In a mind boggling case, a high school teacher in one of the schools around the Hhohho Region has been accused of abducting minor girls from a primary school for five days.

The children, aged 14 and 15, are said to have disappeared last Friday, having been taken away by a teenager who was driving the teacher’s car. They were only located yesterday morning along one of the busy intersections in Ezulwini. One of the children is said to be in Grade VI, while the other is in Grade VII. They are enrolled in one of the primary schools close to the high school where the teacher is employed. The police’s special investigations unit was spotted at the school yesterday, around 1pm, where they dropped off a person believed to be the suspect.

Downcast

He looked downcast, as he walked straight to the head teacher’s office for a meeting that lasted for close to an hour. Reports from sources within the school were to the effect that he was picked-up in the early hours yesterday, after a mob went to the school to demand justice. A father to one of the minors, whose identity cannot be revealed to protect the child, said the children confessed at the Lobamba Police Station that they spent the five days with the teacher and other unknown people in four different locations in the area. “Wherever they went, they met different men, some of whom were unknown to them. What annoys me is that one of the people who was part of this has been calling me all week to give me clues on the children’s whereabouts. The children have now confessed that he was part of the people who spent time with them,” he said.

The father also pointed out that there were allegations of abuse levelled against the teacher and his friends, but he would not know what sort of abuse the minors suffered until after they have been examined by a doctor. “These are young children. I do not understand why someone as senior as the teacher would choose to go to a primary school to do such a thing,” he said.
On a closer look, the teacher appeared to be in his late 30s. Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati said the law precluded her office from speaking on issues touching on minors.

However, a source within the police service stated that the focus at present was on rehabilitation of the children. He said from the hospital, they would be taken to the Social Welfare offices and offered services aimed at relieving the strain that came with experiencing such trauma. “We are talking to the children to try and establish exactly what happened. Any person linked to the incident can be considered a person of interest, nothing more,” he said. The head teacher, whose identity could not be immediately ascertained, was sought for comment, but she left through the back door and was never seen again. In her absence, a staffer said it was the school’s policy not to comment on issues affecting the school to the press. Some angry residents of the area are said to have protested in front of the school over the incident.

Angry

Chairman of the school’s committee, when addressing the angry mob said he would instruct the head teacher to take the matter to the regional education office (REO) right away. He even accompanied the father and the two minors to the police station, where they confessed in the presence of the suspect. There have been many cases of child-teacher relationships in schools around the country in the past, but most of these relationships took place in the same environment. It is a rare case to have a high school teacher engaging in relationships with minors from a primary school. The Teaching Service Commission (TSC) has toughened up its stance on teacher-pupil relationships by expelling and blacklisting teachers found guilty of such offences. The Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence (SODV) Act, meanwhile, provides a variety of grounds for the prosecution of any person found to have been in a relationship with a child under the age of 18.

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