The tragedy surrounding the St Stithians community has forced South Africa to confront a deeply uncomfortable truth: a prestigious school, an affluent family and a seemingly privileged childhood do not make a child immune to violence, trauma or destructive behaviour.
For many years, we have tended to think about child vulnerability through the lens of poverty. We associate children at risk with overcrowded classrooms, substance abuse, gangs, neglect, hunger and violence in under-resourced communities. These are very real and devastating realities. But they are not the only realities our children face.
The challenges confronting children in affluent schools such as St Stithians and others may look very different — but they can be every bit as serious.
There can be enormous pressure to succeed, to belong, to maintain a particular image, to have the right friends, the right clothes, the right social status and the right lifestyle. There is pressure to perform academically, athletically and socially. There is pressure to experiment, to drink, to vape, to use substances, to be sexually active and to conform to what peers consider acceptable.
And beneath all of this is perhaps the most powerful force of adolescence: the desperate need to belong.
A teenager may know that something is wrong but still participate because they fear exclusion. They may tolerate humiliation because they do not want to lose a friendship. They may remain silent about sexual harassment because speaking out could make them unpopular. They may accept controlling behaviour in a relationship because they have confused jealousy with love and possession with commitment.
And sometimes, behind the confident smile of a successful learner, there is a child who is profoundly anxious, lonely, depressed or emotionally overwhelmed.
This is why we must stop thinking about child protection as something that belongs only in poorer communities.
At the same time, we must be honest about the very different realities facing children in public and under-resourced schools.
For many of these children, the struggle is not simply about fitting in. It is about surviving.
They may be growing up surrounded by poverty, family instability, community violence, gangsterism, substance abuse and crime. Some witness violence before they even arrive at school. Others live with hunger, overcrowding, absent parents or caregivers struggling to make ends meet. For some children, the school environment is one of the few places where they can experience safety and stability.
Recent findings from Gauteng illustrate the scale of this challenge. The province has identified 245 high-risk schools after profiling more than 1,300 schools, with violence, bullying, substance abuse, sexual harassment, vandalism and crime among the concerns.
These children need protection from the violence around them.
But children in affluent schools also need protection from the violence that can happen behind closed doors, behind expensive gates and behind reputations of excellence.
The danger is that privilege can create an illusion of safety.
We assume that because a child attends an excellent school, has access to technology, participates in sport and comes from a financially secure family, that child must be okay.
But children do not become emotionally invulnerable because their parents can afford school fees.
They still experience heartbreak.
They still experience rejection.
They still struggle with identity.
They still encounter pornography and sexualised content online.
They still experience bullying and cyberbullying.
They still experiment with substances.
They still experience coercion, sexual violence and unhealthy relationships.
And some are struggling silently because they believe that they have nowhere to turn.
The recent tragedy should therefore not become an opportunity to point fingers at one school, one community or one socioeconomic group.
It should become an opportunity to ask a much bigger question:
What are we doing to prepare our children for the emotional, social and moral complexities of growing up?
Because education cannot simply be about producing high academic achievers.
A school can produce exceptional matric results and still have children who are emotionally drowning.
We need to teach children how to recognise unhealthy relationships. We need to teach them that consent is not negotiable. We need to challenge ideas of masculinity that equate strength with dominance and entitlement. We need to teach boys that rejection is not humiliation and that anger does not give them permission to hurt another person.
We need to teach girls that love should never require them to surrender their boundaries, dignity or safety.
And we need to give every child the language to say:
“This doesn’t feel right.”
“I am being pressured.”
“I am afraid.”
“I need help.”
South Africa’s substance-use crisis also demonstrates why prevention cannot be an afterthought. The Department of Basic Education recently warned about dangerous substance-related behaviour among learners and called for stronger education around substance abuse, peer pressure and risky behaviour.
But a lecture about drugs is not enough.
A poster about bullying is not enough.
A once-a-year assembly about GBV is not enough.
Children need sustained conversations, trusted adults, accessible counselling and environments where disclosure is taken seriously.
Most importantly, we need to stop asking only, “What is wrong with this child?”
We must ask:
“What has happened to this child?”
And:
“What pressures is this child carrying that we cannot see?”
As adults, we sometimes forget how difficult adolescence has become. Children are navigating the ordinary challenges of growing up while simultaneously being exposed to social media, pornography, online predators, unrealistic images of relationships, cyberbullying, constant comparison and an enormous pressure to perform.
They are growing up in a world where harmful behaviour can be filmed, shared and permanently preserved online within seconds.
The answer is not to become more fearful of our children.
It is to become more present in their lives.
Parents need to know their children’s friends. Schools need to know their learners beyond their academic marks. Coaches need to understand that they are sometimes trusted adults in children’s lives. Religious and community leaders need to become part of the child-protection network.
And children need to know that adults will listen without immediately judging, blaming or dismissing them.
We cannot build a safer generation by simply building higher walls around schools.
We build safer children by building stronger relationships around them.
The St Stithians tragedy is heartbreaking precisely because it reminds us that danger does not always announce itself. Sometimes it sits beside us in a classroom. Sometimes it wears a school uniform. Sometimes it is the child everyone describes as “such a nice boy”. Sometimes it is the child who is quietly struggling and whom nobody thought to ask, “Are you okay?”
As a society, we must stop dividing child protection into “their problems” and “our problems”.
The child in the township and the child in the private school may be facing completely different circumstances, but both are children.
Both need boundaries.
Both need guidance.
Both need someone to notice when something changes.
Both need adults who will intervene before tragedy occurs.
And both deserve to grow up believing that belonging should never require them to sacrifice their safety, their dignity or the safety of another human being.
Our schools must become places where children learn not only how to pass examinations, but how to navigate life.
Because ultimately, the greatest measure of a school is not how successful its children become — but how safe, emotionally healthy and humane they become along the way.
- Dr Shaheda Omar is Director of the Teddy Bear Foundation, a registered child abuse organisation that provides a holistic and integrated approach to children and their families.
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