Old boys blow whistle on paedophiles
DHS old boy, Dr Graham Bell flew from Australia to speak at the conference - he said he remained silent for 50 years before he spoke up about his abuse.
DURBAN High School (DHS) hosted the inaugural Safer Schools Seminar on Friday, 10 May. Through guest speakers and participative panel discussions, the day-long seminar opened up a dialogue around the topic: Breaking the Code of Silence.
Retired scientist and DHS old boy, Dr Graham Bell flew from Australia to speak at the conference – he said he remained silent for 50 years before he spoke up about his abuse.
“Breaking the silence began with a brief general comment on the DHS Class of 1964 website, about ‘the elephant in the room,’ child sexual abuse. Across half a century, a code of silence had prevailed, until the digital age came along and the communication revolution arrived for young and old,” he said.
“I was representing a group of 30 concerned old boys who blew the school’s cover on paedophiles on staff, and extracted an apology and policy shift from it in June 2015. We recently pushed for the seminar so it would show the world that it is genuine in its stance against child sexual abuse. The headmaster chose the name and theme for the event which was highly appropriate and to the point. I think the aims were adequately met,” added Graham.
Bell said he was raped by a DHS maths teacher who he alleged, abused between 200 and 400 DHS boys during the course of his teaching career.
Also read: Durban High Court: #SiamLee murder trail adjourned again
Also speaking at the event was Marc Hardwick, founder and managing director of The Guardian, an organisation that aims to safeguard children in South Africa.
“It is clear that there are a wide range of social ills that are enabled in South African schools due to the cultures of silence that we inadvertently create and maintain. In many schools, silence is part of the informal code of conduct and this needs to be broken to make our schools a safer place for all law-abiding citizens,” said Hardwick.
Bell said his perpetrator had used fear and manipulation to keep him and other victims silent.
“A greater burden now falls not only on head masters but also on school governing bodies, to keep schools safe, but it is everyone’s duty to break the code of silence,” he added.
DHS headmaster, Tony Pinheiro said: “Our children are becoming more vulnerable as the lines of acceptable social norms and behaviours become more blurred in these tumultuous times. This inaugural seminar has come out of many conversations among educators and child-care professionals over a long period of time. We at DHS wanted to get all concerned parties together into one room to jointly and proactively craft a way forward for us as educators and school managements to make schools safer for our learners. Also, for us individually to better understand the complexities of what we are up against.”
Also read: Armed men rob uMhlanga home
Glenashley headmaster, Naaim Jaffar attended the seminar.
“It has been an enlightening experience and it is nice to see we are taking a step toward breaking the silence,” he said.
The seminar addressed key areas of concern including bullying; inappropriate educator to learner relations, ‘blessers,’ drugs, gangs, and social media protocols and an exhibition outside of the conference hall allowed various stakeholders, NGO’s, service providers and experts in the field to offer information geared toward learner safety and empowerment.
For more from Northglen News follow us on Facebook or Twitter. You can also follow us on Instagram
