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This Article provides a critical analysis of the role of gender and sexuality in children's navigation of treacherous school journey terrains in one Lesotho rural primary school. It draws on data generated with 12 children (male = 6; female = 6) who travelled an average distance of 10–15 km to and from school every day. The study employed creative...
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... There is growing evidence that highlights children's school journeys as unsafe (Chambers, 2018;Morojele and Muthukrishna, 2012;Morojele, 2013). Indeed, children report fears of and are bullied, harassed, and sexually assaulted as they make their way to school (Ngidi et al., 2021Pells and Morrow, 2017;Porter et al., 2011). ...
This paper describes a study conducted with 20 primary school children from a resource-poor rural community in South Africa. Using participatory mapping, the school children were asked to draw the paths they walked to school (referred to as child maps), and identify unsafe areas on this journey. The data were analyzed using participatory visual analysis techniques by focusing on the children’s representations of their school journeys and their perspectives on their vulnerability on these paths. The analysis revealed a plethora of areas that posed a threat to children as they walked to school. Moreover, the findings suggest that children experienced heteropatriarchal violence on their school journeys, which evoked fear and anxiety since they associated this walk with risk. Using participatory mapping offered a unique opportunity to see how school children constructed and navigated the routes they walked to school, and how on these paths, different forms of violence occurred. The children’s maps offered an important tool for understanding the significance of space and place on routes to school in rural communities.
... For example, Pells and Morrow (2017) examined the experiences of violence encountered by children on the school journey in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam and found that girls experienced frequent sexual harassment and bullying. Morojele (2013) examined how gender shaped children's walk through 'dangerous routes to school' in Lesotho and found that girls were often harassed by older boys and men. Likewise, in a study that used photovoice to explore children's journey to school in rural Lesotho, Muthukrishna and Morojele (2012) found that children attached complex emotions of fear in ways that indicated psychological trauma. ...
The abduction and sexual violation of adolescents, especially in township contexts, has increasingly made headlines in South Africa. These incidents are evocative of jackrolling, a phenomenon that plagued townships during the apartheid upheavals in the late 1980s. The abduction of adolescents on their school journeys has been reported in several South African townships. In this paper, we report on a study in which we used participatory visual methods (i.e., cellphilms: short videos made with cellphones) to explore how 19 adolescent girls and boys living in the Inanda, Ntuzuma, and KwaMashu (INK) township precinct, outside Durban reflected on their vulnerability to sexual violence. Although the question was broad, our analysis of the visual data suggests that adolescents believed that their vulnerability to abduction and rape was almost inevitable. As such, in their cellphilms, they chose to portray their risk and vulnerability to abduction, rape, and even murder on their daily journeys to and from school. We found that through this methodology, adolescents were able to illustrate and/or articulate their fear of sexual violence. For them, violence was an inescapable reality that created fear and helplessness. This underscores the need for interventions, including the provision of safe scholar transport and visible policing in the community.
... For example, Pells and Morrow (2017) examined the experiences of violence encountered by children on the school journey in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam and found that girls experienced frequent sexual harassment and bullying. Morojele (2013) examined how gender shaped children's walk through 'dangerous routes to school' in Lesotho and found that girls were often harassed by older boys and men. Likewise, in a study that used photovoice to explore children's journey to school in rural Lesotho, Muthukrishna and Morojele (2012) found that children attached complex emotions of fear in ways that indicated psychological trauma. ...
The abduction and sexual violation of adolescents, especially in township contexts, has increasingly made headlines in South Africa. These incidents are evocative of jackrolling, a phenomenon that plagued townships during the apartheid upheavals in the late 1980s. The abduction of adolescents on their school journeys has been reported in several South African townships. In this paper, we report on a study in which we used participatory visual methods (i.e., cellphilms: short videos made with cellphones) to explore how 19 adolescent girls and boys living in the Inanda, Ntuzuma, and KwaMashu (INK) township precinct, outside Durban reflected on their vulnerability to sexual violence. Although the question was broad, our analysis of the visual data suggests that adolescents believed that their vulnerability to abduction and rape was almost inevitable. As such, in their cellphilms, they chose to portray their risk and vulnerability to abduction, rape, and even murder on their daily journeys to and from school. We found that through this methodology, adolescents were able to illustrate and/or articulate their fear of sexual violence. For them, violence was an inescapable reality that created fear and helplessness. This underscores the need for interventions, including the provision of safe scholar transport and visible policing in the community.
... She explains, for example, that rural school children walk long distances to school (five kilometres/ three miles) barefoot on uneven and difficult terrain in environments where violence is an ongoing threat. If they are late to school, they are severely punished (see also Morojele 2013). In taking a feminist lens to the subject, Porter (2011) argues that the barriers of distance and a lack of transport intersect with gendered divisions of labour whereby girls take responsibility for significant household tasks such as carrying water or firewood before school each morning. ...
... We would like to acknowledge the wonderful assistance we have been given by Helen Rowlands throughout all stages of putting this issue together. (Morojele 2013;Powell, Taylor, and Smith 2013); geographies of rural youth (Pini and Morris, forthcoming); rural masculinities (Pini 2008) and; rural sexualities/queer rurals (Gorman-Murray, Pini, and Bryant 2013;Keller, forthcoming). ...
... This expectation of boys to protect girls had the likelihood to propagate a feeling of entitlement for boys to take unfair advantage of girls, which might include unwelcomed and unsolicited sexual advances and so forth. As Morojele (2013b) noted, the dominant constructions of gender predispose girls to forms of gender-based violence such as sexual assaults, sexual harassment and rape. The sense of powerlessness that these constructions are likely to imbue among girls might render girls more reticent to challenge, refuse or even report cases of gender-based violence, as also observed by Clowes et al. (2009). ...
This paper foregrounds local teachers’ views to understand how we could address gender inequalities
in schools. It asks: How do teachers’ constructions of gender shape gendered social relations? What are the
implications of these on gender equitable schooling? The paper draws from semi-structured interviews with 12
teachers in three South African primary schools. The findings denote how essentialist teachers’ constructions,
which polarised children into masculine and feminine beings, had the likelihood to compromise the quality of
children’s schooling experience. The existing dominant (and cultural) discourses of gender were found to inform how teachers socialised girls and boys into inequitable gender relations. This affected the expectations that teachers place on children’s behaviour, choice and performance. The study recommends the need to embrace the multiplicity and fluidity of gender qualities, and to support girls and boys to develop to their best human potential, regardless of their gender.
In this article, we use data generated through photovoice and focus group discussions to examine how primary school girls from two resource-poor and high-risk rural communities in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, negotiate their safety on the dangerous journey to and from school. Our findings show that girls actively identify and apply specific safe-seeking strategies by drawing on available community and interpersonal resources as they navigate their way to school. These strategies moderate risk exposure and are perceived to reduce girls’ vulnerability to victimization. While the sustainability of these strategies remains in question, it is essential to note that girls can exercise their agency in providing safety in sociocultural and geographic contexts that expose them to risk.
