WITH the continued partial lock down, one bad vice has continued to rear its ugly head defilement.The issue of young girls being maltreated by sexual predators has been in the Zambian communities for decades and will probably continue to be so for many years to come.AS more children head back to school, it is the hope that teachers will not get caught up.Stereotypically, child sexual exploitation implies the image of a male perpetrator sexually abusing a female child.However, due to an increasing research field recently, it has also been established that part of all child sexual offences are also committed by women.But in Zambia, the majority of child sexual abuse cases involve men such as teachers sleeping with their female pupils or lecturers in higher learning institutions for higher passing grades.What is however certain is that today the security of girl children is no longer guaranteed because despondently sexual molestation has moved from communities and in many cases, into homes where fathers, uncles, nephews or cousins have completely taken over the sordid show.A day hardly passes without hearing of a girl, some as young as 9 years old, being sexually abused by a close relative for fiendish reasons.While it is difficult to fathom the minds of such people, these men are aptly referred to as sexual predators because of their custom of preying on young girls sometimes by pretending to be helpful.Unhappily though, even when the law eventually catches up with them, the vice to the contrary appears to be on the rise in Zambia with catastrophic outcomes.It is also apparent that to combat and overwhelm this evil is no longer the responsibility of parents alone, it calls for the communal responsibility of society to implant the sense of dignity in the girl child.Studies elsewhere have shown that sexual predators have plenty of sexual experience but it is shallow because to them sex is a merely control operation.They ordain the time and place of the encounter and seeking a conquest is the overriding aspect.These sexual perpetrators care little what their “partners” experience or feel because their idea is to conquer a body, not have a relationship.Achieving his objective provides him with a buildup. He has sex on his mind a great deal of the time, looking at females as potential targets.Zambia is a Christian nation and as such these evil deeds certainly do not have a place and should not be tolerated because these abused children are the future of this great nation.Just at the beginning of the year, the Central Province Education Board Office made an appeal for girl pupils to report any sexual harassment from male teachers to the school management, could not have come at a better time than now when the vice appears to be assuming dangerous proportions.Provincial Education Standard Officer (PESO), Kelly Mwale said the Provincial Education Office (PEO) has been receiving reports of male teachers engaging in sexual harassment of girl pupils across the province.Mr. Mwale said as an office, they have taken a bold stance on the matter and suspended the teachers that have been found guilty of sexual harassment of pupils and risk losing their jobs.“If a male teacher is trying to misbehave with you, touching you on your shoulders when marking your books, report them to school management, we do receive such reports as the provincial education office,” said Mr. Mwale.The PESO warned the girl pupils to avoid being involved with sugar daddies for the need of money as doing so would lead to early and unwanted pregnancies.He made the revelations recently during the Launch of the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) program in Central province at Makululu Technical School in Kabwe where he represented the Provincial Education Officer Janepher Banda.Mr. Mwale warned parents against marrying off their school-going children and the pupils from engaging in illicit behavior that would lead to early pregnancies and marriages.
Sexual predators certainly have no place in our society and they should be treated as ‘shoot-on sight’ targets for the safety of the girl child, the future mothers of the nation.
