By Angelique Serrao
Several cellphone videos showing teenage girls in lurid sex acts filmed after a binge-drinking session are circulating around Gauteng.
In three separate videos, two of which are in The Star's possession, drunk teenage girls are filmed stripping naked or having sex in public places.
A recent disturbing video depicts a couple having sex at a spring festival in Abrahamsrust, Sasolburg, Free State, on September 5.
The girl in the video appears to be very drunk, with her head lolling to the side. The boy on top of her is aware the incident is being recorded. He makes no effort to hide his face.
"This is free porn. I've never seen free porn like this," one of the boys can be heard saying.
In the background, a girl tries to take his phone away but he says: "F*** off b****. Do you know how much this phone costs?"
Another boy can be heard saying he wouldn't have a girlfriend who goes to such parties, "because you see what happens to them".
Another comments that he wishes there were some condoms around so he could have sex with her too.
"Get a shot of her face," another says. "I want to stick it onto Facebook and call it the Abrahamsrust Fest b****."
Throughout the clip, the girl does not appear to know what is happening.
This week, The Star tracked down Mpho* (not her real name) - the girl in the footage - to her Sedibeng home.
It's 2pm and it's clear she has been sleeping on the couch. She is wearing blue pyjamas and red tights. Mpho at first denies that she is the person in the video, but then the tears come and she hides her face in her hands.
It was a Saturday and she went with her friends to the big party in Abrahamsrust. Well known DJs were playing and everyone was going.
"I was with my friends and we were drinking beer ... a lot of beer," she said. "We arrived at 8pm and I only got home at 2am."
Mpho said this was the first time she had drank so much, and all she could remember was drinking and dancing.
Late the next morning, her friends came to visit. They told her they saw her having sex and showed her the video.
"I tried to deny it, but I was wearing the same clothes as the girl in the video. Normally I remember what happens, but this day, I don't know."
Now everyone Mpho meets brings up the video. At school, her teachers told her to "keep quiet in class because a girl who has videos of herself having sex has nothing to say".
"I feel like I'm on another planet. Every person I meet tells me about that thing. I have no dignity left, so I stay home, away from the world," she said.
Her parents don't know why their daughter dropped out of her matric year so suddenly. "They are not happy," she said.
Mpho said she doesn't know the boys in the video. Because it was a big party, she didn't know everyone who was there.
"When a video like that comes out, it is passed on to everyone. People find it funny, they don't care that it's someone's life."
She has not opened a sexual assault case with the police.
Gauteng Education MEC Barbara Creecy said she was saddened by the incident. Her department has promised to offer psychological support to Mpho and to get her back to school.
But Mpho's case is not an isolated one. Another cellphone video clip shows a teenage girl at a party. Appearing drunk, she starts to take off all her clothes, to the cheers of a large male audience.
A man is seen dancing behind her and then starts to grab at her private parts, while another man with a cellphone takes close-up images.
Another video shows a pupil who stripped for a cellphone video, which was then distributed without her knowledge by her friends.
The problem is bigger than we think, said Izabella Little, from The LifeTalk forum.
"I have had dozens and dozens of these reports. Often binge drinking is to blame, children lose their sense of judgment," she said.
"It is happening in every area, in every social group and socio-economic circumstance. These videos (are made) in school toilets, in clubs and at sleepovers. Often the boys take advantage of drunk girls and they film it because they believe that what they are doing is heroic," Little said.
"The chances are now very high that your child will be exposed to this in some way."