ISSN 2736-1578
African Journal of Gender and Women Studies ISSN: 2736-1578, Vol. 11 (1), pp. 001-008, January, 2026. Available online at www.internationalscholarsjournals.org © International Scholars Journals
Full Length Research Paper
Sexual Violence Against Girls in Schools: Analyzing Grade 12 Students’ Understandings and Attitudes
Kalula Mpiana
Department of Public management, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa. E-mail: mpiana_kalula@yahoo.co.uk or joshuadorcas@gmail.com. Tel: +27 73 2196 250 or +27 7318 51 585.
Accepted 21 October, 2025
There has been increasing levels of sexual violence against girls in South African schools. Girls continue to face obstacles to their learning even though some progress has been made in terms of gender equality in education. The opportunities that girls have to learn should in no way be compromised by their gender. Sexual violence leads to dropping out, interruption of studies, unwanted pregnancies and HIV/AIDS. Attitudes towards females feed in to the notion that coercive sex is not a violent act. Although this study focuses on the girls and recognized that boys are also being sexually assaulted.
Keywords: Attitude, girls, learners, school and sexual violence.