EDITOR’S COMMENT
Choices and consequences in South Africa: bullying and the new step-aside ruling
Maybe, just maybe, South Africa has reached a turning point when it comes to dealing with bullying and criminality. I say that after the recent announcement of a “step-aside” ruling by the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and the high-level investigation by the Limpopo Department of Education into the alleged suicide of 15-year-old Lufuno Mavhunga following a bullying incident at her school, which went viral.
I
was actually gobsmacked when I heard that the “30-day step-aside” ruling had been passed, considering the factionalised state of the ANC at the moment. And yet, the clock is ticking steadily towards 30 April, the deadline for members of the ruling party, who have been charged with corruption and other crimes, to step down from their positions. Also important is the investigation into the circumstances around the death of Lufuno, trending widely on social media as #JusticeForLufuno. SowetanLIVE reported that the bully “allegedly attacked Lufuno because she had
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blocked her on WhatsApp and Facebook… after Lufuno had allegedly received insulting messages.” The attack was accompanied by cheering from other learners, who, I believe, should be criminally charged along with the bully. Failure to do something about the escalating violence in our schools is a ticket to ever-more shocking crime statistics in a country already reeling from crime. Tina Thiart, founding member of 1000 Women Trust1, which is running a campaign against bullying in all forms, says that as many as 57% of South African learners have been bullied at some time during their high-school
careers and that child bullies have usually experienced violence in the home between adults. Further, she points out that male school bullies are twice as likely to bully their girlfriends and partners in later years. “When one considers that we have 2.2 million school-going children in this country, those percentages translate into truly staggering numbers,” she says. Unlike the brand-new step-aside ruling, South Africa already has legislation in place to deal with bullying in all its forms – but it’s only effective if we act on it. According to LegalWise2, criminal charges can be laid at police stations, regardless of the age of the bully. Bullies
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