'Who Guards the Guards in Schools?' A Study of Reported Cases of Child Abuse by Teachers in Zimbabwean Secondary Schools

Teachers play an important part as role models and moral educators within their schools because they act in loco parentis to their pupils. In such roles, teachers are expected to guide their pupils and make them aware of their roles and of practices within society. However, some teachers tend to use their manipulative powers and abuse their pupils sexually, physically or emotionally. Education is a social process by which society transmits to children those aspects of its culture that are considered fundamental and vital for its own survival and stability. Sex education is one such vehicle that is used by teachers to transmit culture to the emergent generation. This study examined abuses that are perpetrated by some teachers charged with the responsibility of transmitting societal values, morals, norms and beliefs to children. Content analysis was used to generate data from the files of reported perpetrators of child abuse. Demographic data show that 212 sexual abuse cases, 33 physical abuse cases and one emotional abuse case were reported. The great majority of the perpetrators of sexual abuse were male. Sexual abuse perpetrators committed such abuses on their victims as sexual intercourse, having a love affair, fondling breasts, buttocks or thighs, kissing, hugging or caressing, rape and attempted rape, and showing pupils pornographic materials. The majority of physical abuse perpetrators were male. Physical abuse perpetrators committed the following forms of abuses on their victims: beating, caning, whipping or hitting, slapping or clapping, punching with fists, and kicking. Only one case of emotional abuse was reported in this study. If teachers act in loco parentis to their pupils within schools and have no regard for them, then 'Who guards the guards in schools?' This implies that children are at the mercy of the world in such schools.