As the second day of school went ahead for many Port Elizabeth pupils on Thursday‚ a teenager whose parents removed her from school due to severe bullying – including physical abuse and threatening voice messages – is no closer to knowing whether she will be attending school this year.
The 15-year-old’s parents said they were extremely frustrated by the lack of action on the part of their daughter’s former school and the education department.
While the provincial Department of Education said the district office had to deal with the issue‚ the parents said their pleas for a new school had fallen on deaf ears.
Two days after first asking questions on the matter‚ The Herald has also not received a response from the district office.
The former Sanctor High School pupil’s parents said the girl had been so badly affected by the verbal and physical abuse that she had started to mutilate herself and eventually attempted suicide.
The youngster was initially pulled from school in September last year.
She went back to finish the exams and her parents approached the Department of Education in November asking for a place at another school.
The girl said her ordeal had begun in 2015 when she started Grade 8 and had continued into Grade 9 last year.
She began self-mutilating‚ cutting her arms‚ in July 2015‚ something her parents were unaware of until she tried to commit suicide in September last year.
She said she did not know how to cope with the situation and cutting herself was a way of expressing her pain‚ but she had not told her parents until September.
She said that on one hockey trip in September 2015. she had been hit with a stick by one of her bullies‚ who later brushed it off as part of the game.
Of her suicide attempt‚ she said: “It was a dark time in my life. I did not know what else to do.”
Full story in The Herald.
– TMG Digital/The Herald
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