The Sunday Mail
Divine Beginners and Junior School on Wednesday took a step towards protecting their pupils from child abuse when they invited Family Support officials to educate the pupils about sexual abuse.
The Chitungwiza school spokesperson Chiedza Mandizvidza said this is a constant exercise they do to ensure their pupils are protected from sexual abuse.
“We do this once every term because every term we get new pupils and the old pupils also need constant reminders,” she said.
Most of the pupils easily identified what they termed “don’t touch” areas when asked by Emilda Munjoro from Family Support.
They pointed to their private parts and were also impressive when asked what they would do should someone touch their “don’t touch” areas.
“I will tell my mother!”
“I will tell my teacher.”
“I will tell my granny.”
“I will go to the police”
“I will tell my aunt,” they said in turns.
The pupils showed that they are well groomed when it comes to issues of sexual abuse through their confident replies.
And when Emilda asked them what they would do if the person who touched them told them to keep the abuse a secret or threatened them with death, again they had ready answers.
“There are no secrets. I will still tell my teacher,” said one of the Divine Beginners pupils.
“Most sexual abuse cases are perpetrated by close family members or relatives that are in the children’s positions of trust,” said Mandizvidza.
“It is always the uncle or the aunt or the stepfather, sometimes even the father who sexually abuses the child.
So we call Family Support to “edutain” the pupils about the people that pose the biggest dangers to their lives.
I say edutain because children learn through playing, through singing these don’t touch songs and playing these anti-sexual abuse games,” she said.
“The feedback we get from parents is impressive and we hear some of the children refuse to be touched in the wrong areas even during baths and they opt to bath their own private parts.
Through these rhymes and songs and games, I can safely tell you that Divine Beginners and Junior School pupils do not get abused sexually.
And if it somehow happens, the perpetrators will be brought to book,” said a confident Mandizvidza.
She added that they always invite Family Support officials at their functions and last term they did so when they hosted four other schools for a sports day.
“We hold a lot of functions, cultural and sporting in line with the new curriculum and Family Support officials in Chitungwiza have become family as we always invite them to educate our children about child sexual abuse at such events.
So whether it’s mass displays, presidential marches, drummies, swimming or ball games, every event we host is an opportunity to educate our kids and other pupils from competing schools about child sexual abuse.”
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