South African school dormitory closed after lesbian kiss
March 3rd, 2010 by Siobhan.McGuirk
Education officials in South Africa are investigating reports that a girls’ boarding school dormitory was closed and 27 pupils expelled after lesbian relationships were discovered there.
The story, first reported in the UK by the Star newspaper, appeared in Durban daily The Mercury last Friday. The newspaper said that governors at the unnamed school in KwaZulu-Natal province shut down the facility after two girls were found kissing. The girls later identified other students engaged in lesbian relationships, who were all expelled.
A parent told The Mercury, “The school didn’t tell us anything, they just told us to fetch our children. The circumstances around their removal are absurd, because some were apparently seen hugging,”
Provincial education department spokesperson Mfundi Sibiya told the South Africa Broadcast Corporation that suspending or expelling a pupil based on his or her sexual orientation is illegal and that the matter would be investigated. Latest reports indicate that the dormitory was reopened yesterday after an education department meeting at the school. The fate of the expelled students is, however, unclear.
South Africa is unique among African nations in that discrimination on the basis of sexuality is constitutionally prohibited. Gay marriage has been legalised. Human rights campaigners and gay activists say that prejudice remains commonplace, however, especially outside of urban areas. Lesbians are particularly targeted for murder and “correctional rape”.
Politicians have also been accused of fostering institutionalised homophobia. Yesterday, government minister Lulu Xingwana walked out of an exhibition opening she was due to address after viewing intimate portraits of naked female couples, taken by the lesbian artist and activist Zanele Muholi. Xingwana told reporters, “It was immoral, offensive and going against nation-building.”
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