Intersexions: Sex, Lies and Exploitation.

Intersexions: Sex, Lies and Exploitation.

All too often, the people who should be our protectors, such as teachers are the very ones who put us in harm’s way through their own abusive and dangerous behaviour.
This is the underlying scenario in episode 6 of Intersexions on SABC1 Friday at 20h30 on 26 August 2011. Intersexions, an SABC Education drama series explores the human sexual web of which we are all part, and the risks it carries. Each of the series’ episodes are standalone, but linked, stories, structurally mimicking this human web and interconnecting all of the characters in all of the stories.
Intersexions is co-produced by Curious Pictures and Ants Multimedia, in partnership with Johns Hopkins Health and Education in South Africa (JHHESA) and SABC Education, with funding from USAID and PEPFAR.
Joan van Niekerk, National Manager: Training and Advocacy for Childline says, “The problem of harassment and sexual abuse of schoolchildren, either by their teachers or their peers is huge.”
She points to Human Sciences Research Council research findings in which 34% of learners said they have been harassed or sexually abused by their peers, and 14% by their teachers.
“I find it absolutely shocking,” she says, adding that she is equally shocked by a lack of concerted follow-through action by the authorities in the wake of such findings, to address what she believes is “a national epidemic”.
But, she adds: “I think we’ve become so inured to these reports that they don’t mean anything any more.”
In episode five, viewers saw Daveyton school choirmaster and teacher Israel Molete, a man who on the surface is innocent, self-righteous, virtuous and a good servant to his community, but underneath when no one is watching, he uses his position to seduce and solicit sex from young women, including Hillbrow sex worker Dalitso.
In this episode, we see Molete in his workplace. When he beats a colleague, Ike Bopape, to a promotion, Bopape accuses him in front of the headmistress of sexually abusing two pupils, Tsholofelo and Sylvia. Molete, in turn, accuses Bopape of playing the sexual abuse card to get the promotion. Bopape, in defiance of the headmistress, invites the police to speak to the learners about children’s rights and is fired for insubordination.
But then Tsholofelo and Sylvia confess, and Molete’s secret life unravels. He has slept with the two girls, and Sylvia is pregnant. He is forced to leave the school, and the vindicated Bopape is reinstated.
The episode, titled Sad Song, is a lesson to older people to respect the positions of trust that they have been given and that the respect that they as elders enjoy should be earned through word and deed, not demanded. It also teaches young people that they can avoid exploitation and serious risks to their wellbeing through having a strong sense of self-respect, which is lacking in all three of the female characters.
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