Schools required to open criminal cases in under-age pregnancies

It will require schools to open cases with the police when learners below the age of 16 are impregnated.

The Department of Education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said this would be part of a few measures to deal with sexual offences, child abuse and neglect.

“In certain circumstances, information relating to a learner’s pregnancy may give rise to mandatory or voluntary reporting by the educator appointed by the school.”

He said the policy would also provide counselling, support and advice to the learners, while its goal was to provide guiding principles and themes to reduce and manage learner pregnancies and its adverse impact on the affected learners and the basic education system.

Mhlanga said the rate of learner pregnancies in South Africa created concern and became a major challenge for both national development and the basic education system.

“It affects the lives of thousands of young people, often limiting their personal growth, their pursuit of rewarding careers and their ambitions, with an incalculable impact on South Africa’s socio-economic landscape.”

He said the policy provided guidance on the reduction of unintended pregnancies and management of their pre- and post-natal consequences. It will also help with the limitation of stigma and discrimination and, importantly, the retention and re-enrolment of affected learners in school.

Mhlanga said the policy also looked to the choice of termination of pregnancy (CToP) and guidelines for management and implementation.

“In particular, it commits the department and other role players to providing comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), as a crucial part of school curricula to safeguard learners’ sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR).”

Mhlanga said the aim of CSE was to ensure that learners gained the knowledge and skills to make conscious, healthy and respectful choices about relationships and sexuality.

“It provides an age-appropriate, culturally-relevant and right-based approach to sexuality and relationships, which explicitly addresses issues of gender and power, and provides scientifically accurate, practical information in a non-judgmental way.”

He said there would also be legal implications for the learner and her partner, which required the utmost sensitivity and guidance.

“If the pregnant learner is under the age of 16, this would require mandatory reporting to the SAPS and entails civil and criminal proceedings against the male partner if he is over the age of 16 years.”

He said the DBE’s protocol for the management and reporting of sexual abuse and harassment in schools and the children’s act, 2005, refers and required that such information be reported to a designated child protection organisation, the provincial head of the DSD or SAPS.

The chairperson of the commission for gender equality (CGE), Tamara Mathebula, welcomed the announcement by the education department that would compel schools to open cases with the police when learners below the age of 16 are impregnated by people above their age.

This as the commission had repeatedly called for the law to be applied to curb the growing scourge of statutory rape in South Africa, which had seen thousands of under-age girls, some as young as ten years, drop out of school due to early pregnancy.

“The commission has confidence that the police and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) will play their part to ensure that every case of statutory rape is thoroughly investigated and successfully prosecuted,” said Mathebula.

“The commission calls for families and communities to report any incidences of abuse to the nearest police station.”