Durban - The family of a 5-year-old pupil, who was captured on cellphone video footage recounting an underage sexual encounter she had been exposed to, say they are traumatised by the incident and circulation of the video.
In the 39-second video, taken by an unidentified teacher and circulated on social media in July this year, the young girl is prompted by a woman to repeat what she had apparently said before the recording began.
Petrified and wary, the child then proceeds to graphically detail how she witnessed three children having sex.
Sources who spoke to The Mercury this week said the children were between 10 and 12 and the video incident had occurred in Vulindlela, just outside Pietermaritzburg. The teacher is believed to be from the Bulwer area.
The child’s mother, who cannot be identified to protect the pupil’s identity, said the family had been “haunted” by the incident.
She said the video had been taken last year but the family only found out about it when it started circulating on social media.
“A parent at the school alerted me after seeing it on Facebook. She called me and was certain that it was my daughter in the video,” she said.
“I called my husband and told him that the clip was on social media. I tried to call the teacher on the same day, but she didn’t take my call. I went to the school the following day and she (the teacher) was at the school. The principal called her for a meeting and the teacher said she had no idea how the video landed on Facebook.”
The teacher, she said, had been “remorseful” and promised to stop the video from spreading further.
“My husband was more furious than I was, even saying the teacher behaved as if she had no children of her own. She could tell that my husband was fuming and requested a meeting, which never happened.”
“She told us the video had been deleted. I was shocked and hurt when I heard that it was still circulating,” she said.
The woman said her husband was considering removing their daughter from the school and they were angry that no action had been taken against the teacher.
After The Mercury advised the KwaZulu-Natal Education Department about the location of the school on Tuesday, education spokesman Muzi Mahlambi said they would take up the matter.
“Now that we have narrowed our scope of investigation and have been able to come up with a possible school, we will dig deep on this matter and take appropriate disciplinary action if required.”
KwaZulu-Natal Education MEC Mthandeni Dlungwane is expected to visit the school this week.
The girl’s mother said she was happy about Dlungwane’s proposed visit and hoped it would stop the teacher from “inflicting such terror” on her child.
The Mercury