DEALING WITH UNFORTUNATE INCIDENCES OF VIOLENCE IN SCHOOLS – A UNION’S RESPONSE Khanyisile Mdziniso SADTU (South African Democratic Teachers Union)
From 2016 there has been an increase in the global scourge of Gender Based Violence (GBV) in many societies, and school communities are no exceptions. All news channels: national TV, local radio, newspapers and social media, have reported incidences of GBV. When this occurs in schools, it is called School Related Gender Based Violence (SRGBV). I started working on these issues after I attended an EI workshop on SRGBV called “Hearing Our Stories 1” in Johannesburg South Africa, organised by Gender at Work. Provincial gender and education conveners (union leaders), and one additional teacher from each province attended the meeting with three union staff from our research department, including myself, as observers. The facilitator explained that the meeting was an opportunity for the union to hear its own stories of SRGBV. At first, the participants stared blankly at the facilitator, as if to say, they had no idea what she was talking about. Then one at a time, we started recalling stories. When all was said and done, we reflected on the different atrocities that had been shared and were in complete shock that these things go on and no one says anything about them. A wide variety of violence was perpetuated by different members of the school community, e.g. school principals suffered violence from learners; women teachers by school teenage boys; young girls by male teachers; and at times it was learners at large violated by women teachers. The workshop 96
