Equal Education Monitoring 6/6/2018

Traditional Media Coverage

1. Equal Education and MEC Debbie Schäfer reach agreement

   Jun 6, 2018 | Inside Education

   By Tariro Washinyira
   
   
   The Western Cape Education Department will wait before taking any action following allegations of sexual misconduct against three people in Equal Education, MEC Debbie Schäfer said in a statement.
2. NGOs may be turning a blind eye to sexual harassment within own organisation

   Jun 6, 2018 | 702

Traditional Media Coverage

1. Equal Education and MEC Debbie Schäfer reach agreement

   Jun 6, 2018 | Inside Education

   By Tariro Washinyira

   The Western Cape Education Department will wait before taking any action following allegations of sexual misconduct against three people in Equal Education, MEC Debbie Schäfer said in a statement.

   On 21 May MEC Schäfer instructed Equal Education (EE) to stop operating in the province’s schools until her department held a meeting with the organisation. (A subsequent article by GroundUp pointed out that a Cape Town school teacher continued to teach while on trial for sexually abusing a learner.)

   In a statement on Sunday Schäfer said that her department had agreed to wait for the outcome of investigations that EE hopes will be finalised within the next few weeks before her department took any action. This follows as meeting in which EE explained that none of the men accused of misconduct had regular direct interaction with Western Cape learners. The two parties plan to meet again once the investigations are concluded.

   “EE briefed us on all three cases that have been raised in the media and the processes of investigation that are being followed in each case. The investigations will be done by people completely independent of the organisation, and will be conducted as speedily as possible,” said Schäfer’s statement.

   “They explained to us the processes they have in place to train and sensitise their members at all levels of the organisation regarding matters of sex and power abuse. We all agreed that sexual misconduct is unacceptable and have agreed to work together on a new policy for organisations working in schools.”

   Concurrently EE released a statement saying that it stops school-based activities during exams anyway. The organisation also wrote that the meeting with the MEC had been “positive” and that it had explained the “seriousness with which EE has approached issues of sexual harassment”. EE also said that there should “at this stage be no obstacle to EE members continuing to organise in the Western Cape”.

   The EE statement said that the organisation would meet the provincial education department once the sexual harassment investigations had been concluded.

   https://www.insideeducation.org/featured/equal-education-mec-debbie-schafer-reach-agreement/
   

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2. NGOs may be turning a blind eye to sexual harassment within own organisation

   Jun 6, 2018 | 702

   CapeTalk host Eusebius McKaiser hosted a roundtable to discuss the functions of civil society movements, especially with the rise of sexual violence against women.

   Mckaiser hosted director of South Africa Action Aid, Fatima Shabodien, programs manager for woman rights and gender justice at Oxfam, Kwezilomso Mbandazayo, and activist and social Change Initiative fellow, Phumi Mtetwa.

   Are these institutions interrogating these social ills even when they take place within their organisations or they simply turn a blind eye?

   I don't want to underestimate the nature of the crisis. I think it is profound, but it also presents us with a unique opportunity to sit back and reflect on the state of our sector and interrogate the disconnect between the values we hold for ourselves and society, and the reality that exists in our society.

   — Fatima Shabodien, Country Director South Africa Action aid

   If a woman who works for our organisation can be sexually assaulted and be raped inside the organisation, imagine what happens to volunteers we work with out in rural areas where there aren't eyes to watch.

   — Fatima Shabodien, Country Director South Africa Action Aid

   Activist Phumi Mtetwa weighed in on the fact that organisations are sometimes silent when it comes to some of the ills that happen within them.

   At the heart of it is, what principles and values do we hold, especially in the nature of work that we do. I think this is a test about what do we mean about our politics, how do we centre them in real life so that we not only making good speeches that appeal and mobilise people to fight businesses but that we are able to integrate these values and principles in our politics.

   — Phumi Mtetwa, Activist and social Change Initiative Fellow,

   On the contrary, Kwezilomso Mbandazayo argues that the fact that civil societies are silent on certain issues social issues is misleading.

   We are not really silent, it depends on who is listening, who wants to listen and who is this person who suddenly picked up that there is talk.— Kwezilomso Mbandazayo, Programs manager for Woman Rights and Gender Justice at Oxfam

   Many of us in NGOs have spoken about the fact that we cannot be surprised and we need to plan for violence in an institution. In as much as we set ourselves a standard, we live in a patriarchal, heteronormative, racist society and those things are going to be a norm and fester in an institution if you are not actively working against them in the culture.— Kwezilomso Mbandazayo, Programs manager for woman rights and Gender Justice at Oxfam

   To hear the rest of the conversation with civil societies representatives, listen below:

   http://www.702.co.za/articles/306593/ngos-may-be-turning-a-blind-eye-to-sexual-harassment-within-own-organisation
   

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