#GPSchoolsAbuse: DA calls for urgent probe into alleged sex for jobs scandal

13 November 2017

The DA calls on Gauteng Education MEC, Panyaza Lesufi to urgently probe allegations of young female contract workers engaging in sexual favours with senior departmental officials in order to secure their jobs.

Sexual abuse transcends the classroom and serious allegations of this nature must be probed immediately.

Socioeconomic challenges are the primary driving force behind young women, interns, scholar patrollers and contract workers engaging in sexual relationships as a means to lift themselves out of poverty.

It is indeed a known and sad reality that vulnerable young women are left with very little choice but to prostitute themselves in order to keep food on the table.

It is due to these types of cases that the DA still believes that the only credible way of dealing with sexual abuse allegations, in schools and within the department, is through a fully-fledged commission of inquiry, which only the Premier has the constitutional power to establish.

Senior officials within the department cannot be trusted to deal with sexual abuse cases in schools, if they themselves are sexual predators.

MEC Lesufi must ensure that these individuals are held accountable, rooted out of the department and that they face the full might of the law.

The scourge of sexual abuse in Gauteng plaguing our classrooms, departments, and preying on our vulnerable and at-risk residents must urgently be addressed.

Therefore, we reiterate our call for Premier David Makhura to appoint a commission of inquiry into sexual abuse in the province, in order to find solutions that will end this scourge sooner rather than later.

Issued by Khume Ramulifho, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Education, 13 November 2017