Female students residing in boarding schools are susceptible to violence and sexual harassment, says a thematic report on school violence carried out by the Supreme Council for Education in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
According to the report, some boarding students who participated in the research admitted, during interviews with them, that there is violence in boarding schools that’’ amounts sometimes to sexual violence and/or rape”.
The social fragility of students residing in boarding schools contributes to their exposure to violence, as the report of the Supreme Council for Education, Training and Scientific Research highlighted that some male and female students spend months in these institutions without visiting their families despite their young age.
In response to this situation, the council stressed the need to “take urgent measures to protect students in these boarding schools from violence.’’
The Supreme Council for Education, Training and Scientific Research sounded the alarm about the danger of sexual violence and rape lurking in boarding schools, and which stems from the large number of students of both sexes residing in these institutions.
The number of boarding schools in primary education in Morocco has reached 107, including 10,685 students benefiting from the services of the institutions.
The number of middle school students residing in boarding schools is 49,018 students, including 24,766 girls, and 29,090 male beneficiaries. Broadening houses in high schools include 51,319 students, among which 26,149 girls.
In the report, the council warned of the possibility that students in boarding homes are “victims of violence and harassment by educational frameworks.”
The council pointed out that these students are “more vulnerable because of their distance from their protective family environment, their precarious economic and social situation, and their gender or their potential disability…”
The council also called for “developing mechanisms to protect children within these institutions in order to avoid and reduce cases of violence (between children and between adults and children).
Although the establishment of boarding schools reflects the efforts made by the Ministry of National Education to generalize the education of children in rural areas, especially girls, the two cases of rape that were reported in the research “require great vigilance to protect students, especially girls, from sexual harassment’’.
The Council also called for the establishment of a system for reporting victims that would enable children themselves to report every assault or harassment they are exposed to while providing them with the necessary information and education in advance.
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