The initials used do not correlate to the actual names of any children interviewed. We also spoke with many of the girls' parents and teachers as well as social workers and therapists treating girls for trauma. In the course of the investigation, we met with human rights lawyers and activists, journalists, police officials, prosecutors, judges, teachers, and provincial education department officials. We also interviewed several high-ranking government officials, including the Senior Superintendent Commander of the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit of the South African Police Service and the Special Director of the Sexual Offence and Community Affairs Unit of the Office of the National Director of Public Prosecutions. Our findings are based largely on these interviews and visits to schools.
Data collected by South African groups is consistent with our findings.
This includes documentation of cases reported to the telephone hotline of Childline, a social service agency working with victims of child abuse that assisted in the conduct of this study. This information confirmed the general findings of our own interviews with girls and makes clear the urgency of the problem of school-based sexual violence against girls. In what follows, we draw on both our own interviews and the data of South African groups. 1 Childline is a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization with several branches throughout South Africa. Childline was founded in Durban in 1986 and began as an informal telephone counseling services for abused children and their families.