Protesters outside Queens High School. Image: Tracy Lee Stark
A handful of women are protesting outside Queens High School in Johannesburg on Friday morning after a teacher at the school was accused of sexual assault.
Gauteng education MEC Panzaya Lesufi is probing the allegations after a woman on Thursday protested outside the school holding a placard. The single woman who staged a protest outside the school said: “There are girls that have come forward to my group. They have come out and said they have been assaulted by a teacher at this exact school. They have tried to report it, but they have been given excuses over and over again. Apparently, the principal has been protecting the teacher.
“All I am doing here is standing in peace, I am not fighting with nobody. These girls do not have a voice and I will be a voice for them, whether I get arrested I don’t care, whether I die, I don’t care.”
She was holding a placard which reads: “Your daughter is not safe, the principal protects sexual predators.”
The woman in the video, Chantel Gordon Moyo, 22, told the Citizen that she was convinced the principal was protecting the teacher.
In a voice note which the Citizen is in possession of, Gordon-Moyo said that on a group she had started, a lot of girls told her that they were sexually harassed at Queens High School, but were afraid to come forward as the principal allegedly protected the teacher.
At the school, Lesufi said he would establish facts on the allegations of sexual assault of pupils by an educator. Addressing the pupils at the school, he said no pupil should go to school fearing for their lives. He urged the pupils to assist him and reassured them that they would not be victimised for coming forward.
The MEC confirmed the teacher had been suspended pending an investigation.
Watch Lesufi’s address below:
(Video shot by Tracy Lee Stark)
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