WHEN they vowed that they were going fight the discrimination

posed against their church members in schools, they really meant

what they said.

Thabo Sambothi who acts as an activist on the issue told Daily Sun on
Sunday that they were going to do away with the teachers who abuse
pupils from the Nazareth Baptist Church for keeping their hair as part
of church requirements.

Sambothi shared his feeling of satisfaction with the People’s Paper

following the arrest of a teacher at a high school in Nongoma in the
north of KZN on Wednesday.

The alleged teacher has been abusing two 14 year old pupils in her
class since the beginning of this year.

Sambothi said they welcomed the arrest and they were waiting for the
justice system to take its course.

“The church is going to fight this stigma of abusive teachers who

keep on abusing our kids as they don’t want to abide by the
constitution that call for all the religious rights o be respected,” said
Sambothi.

One of the parents of the kids who were allegedly discriminated by

the arrested teacher said he was happy that her kid is now going to
study with no fear of intimidation.

“This teacher used to abuse my child in front of all the pupils in her
class since the beginning of this year. I remember the other day where
she went as far as gluing a bubblegum in her hair saying that leaving
long hair unshaved was against the school bylaws,” said the parent.

He said he together with his pastor went to the school a number of

times in an attempt to try and explain why her kid was keeping her
hair but all that went in vein as the abuse continued.

Chairwoman of the Commision for the Promotion and Protection of

the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, Thoko
Mkhwanazi-Xaluva said: “We still have a long list of teachers that
we’re going to arrest because we’ve tried to address this issue nicely
but that didn’t work so we decided to involve the justice system in the
fight.”

KZN education spokesman, Muzi Mahlambi said: “We have started

our own internal investigation and we will take disciplinary actions
because there is no pupil who should be discriminated on basis of
religious associations.”

(Police comment)

(SGB comment)