Friday, February 7, 2025

Bullying is rampant in public schools

A form four student at Gaborone Secondary School (GSS) has revealed that bullying is rampant in most public schools and it is perpetrated by fellow students who unleash a reign of terror on others will little or no intervention from teachers. One of the victims, Tebogo preferred to use a pseudonym because he feared the bullies would go after him if his real name was revealed.

He revealed how he was assaulted by fellow students at some point in the school ablutions. Just as he was coming out of the toilet, three aggressive looking Form 5 students walked in, blocked his path and swung the toilet door closed. He tried to squeeze past the three seniors but to no avail. They threw him against a wall and started laughing as they threw jabs at him. Soon they were arguing about what they should do to him.

“Flush his head down the toilet,” one of them suggested.

Tebogo felt a bit of relief surging through him as he had been ‘baptized’ once or twice before. I should be used to it by now, he thought; it’s not such a big deal. But things got worse. This time it was not only going to be a baptism of water, because one of them suggested that they should first defecate into the toilet bowl before plunging his head in there and flushing. Suddenly he was very worried. Another one suggested they shave his pubic hair.

“My god, this can’t be happening to me,” Tebogo thought to himself.

They lunged at him and tried to pull his pants down. He couldn’t let them do such a thing to him. So he fought back. His biggest worry was that the seniors would find that he had no pubic hair and spread the word all over school. That would be seriously embarrassing. He would rather take a beating at any time. You see he was only sixteen. For a boy that age, it would be very embarrassing if other school kids got to find out that his sexuality was somehow lacking. So he charged at the bullies, threw one of them against the wall and lunged at the other two. Soon he was out the door and running for his dear life.

“One of them was a mean and stocky fella whose eyes bulged after his marijuana smoking sessions. He was like a mad bull when he smoked his stuff. He also had this thick vein that throbbed right from his hairline, down his forehead towards his nose after he smoked. I was really scared of him,” said Tebogo.

He managed to escape that day, but the fight was far from over. The stocky bully with the bulging eyes and throbbing vein had a score to settle with him. He caught him at some point while he was playing with a friend. They ran for dear life and hid inside a cupboard. But the bully was not about to give up. Suddenly the cupboard door burst open and the bully pulled them out. He held them apart with ease, his hands tightly around their necks, chocking them.

They stood there helplessly, terrified as his blood shot eyes bore into them. Stars exploded in their heads as he whacked their heads against each other. After that they were in a daze, everything was blurred. Then he let them go. They regained focus after a few minutes and found a corner where they cried their lungs out. The bully doesn’t trouble them much, except now and then when he pulls them by their boxers or under pants and hangs them off a locker door. The poor boys are resigned to their fate.

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