Sara is 17 years old and attends a boarding school in Mozambique. Just like for most of her classmates, the school is far away from home. When she first arrived at the school, she thought it was a wonderful place.
"But then," says Sara, "I discovered that it wasn't a nice school. The principal does things to the students that he shouldn't do.“One day, a friend told me she had seen naked pictures of me in the principal's office, they were on his cellphone," Sara continues.
"It all started that Saturday when I was washing clothes behind the school," says Sara. She heard a car coming down the road. And when it parked right next to her, she saw that it was her school principal. He leaned out of the window and asked her to fetch him a plate of food from the kitchen. There was nothing strange about that, so Sara did as he wanted.
"But," says Sara, "when I handed him the plate, he told me to get into the car. I didn't understand why and just stood there. Then he said that if I didn't obey and get in, he would kick me out of school." Sara felt forced to get into the car. When she sat next to the principal, he started touching her legs and pulled off the cloth she had wrapped around herself like a skirt.
"I was naked from the waist down," says Sara. "The principal took out his cell phone and took pictures of me, and then he touched both me and himself. I was terrified. When he was done, he gave me a package of cookies and a soda and told me not to tell anyone what had happened. If I did, he’d first beat me and then throw me out of school."
This was the first time it happened to Sara, but unfortunately not the last. Later, on a Sunday, when Sara was on her way home from church, she saw the principal's car again.
"He said he would drive us to school, but instead he drove in a different direction for about an hour. I was so scared that I couldn't move. Then he forced me to lie down in the backseat. He took all my clothes off and started touching me everywhere. My own principal!"
"There's a war against us girls at our school," says Maria Rosa, one of Sara's schoolmates. "We are being abused by the principal and some of the teachers in exchange for passing grades and exams. That’s the same as child trafficking," she says.
Maria Rosa is 17 years old, just like Sara. She’s been living at the school for four years. "Before I moved here, I was really looking forward to it," says Maria Rosa. "But I soon realised something was wrong. Nobody here treats children the way they should. Not the teachers, the principal, the guards or the ones responsible for the dormitories."
"One day, I was summoned to the principal's office," Maria Rosa continues. "He told me to close the door, and then started playing a sex film on his computer. He said I had to watch. When I asked why, he said I probably already knew what people do in those kinds of movies. Then he pulled out a list of the students. He pointed to a boy's name and asked if it was true that I was dating that boy. I answered truthfully that I didn't have a boyfriend. Then he said, ‘Watch yourself, or I'll talk to your parents.' I told him my parents know that I always tell the truth, and I intend to tell them what’s happened here. ‘If you do that’, he said, ‘I will kick you out of school and make sure you never get to attend any school in Mozambique."
"That day, the principal questioned many girls at the school in the same way," Maria Rosa says. But that wasn't the worst of it. Several teachers also threatened the girls and told them they wouldn't pass their exams or let them graduate if they didn't have sex with the teachers. "I get angry when us girls are abused like this," Maria Rosa continues.
Then one day, something happened that would lead to change. Maria Rosa went to a training to become a Child Rights Ambassador. "It opened my eyes," says Maria Rosa. "I realised that we could no longer accept what we were subjected to, that we had to become like the girls who are Child Rights Ambassadors and fight for our rights and the rights of others. Before, we only saw what was happening. Now we know where to turn if we experience something that’s wrong."
"From the day we Child Rights Ambassadors returned from the training, the principal and teachers became afraid of us," says Maria Rosa. "They didn't want us to educate other girls and boys about our rights because that would make it much harder for them to continue what they were doing", Maria Rosa continues.
Eventually, the girls' stories reached the Department of Education, which scheduled a meeting with the Child Rights Ambassadors to investigate if everything the girls had said was true. "It was painful to talk about it," says Maria Rosa. "It wasn't easy to stand there and describe everything we had experienced in front of powerful people. But it was necessary, and it was urgent because more and more girls were dropping out of school because of the abuse."
The authorities listened and sent experts to the school to interview both staff and students. They found evidence that everything the girls had shared was true. It was revealed which teachers had exploited girls at the school, and in the principal's computer, they found videos and images of students. "Just as we said," says Maria Rosa.
Girls from the boarding school were invited to talk to authorities, and tell their stories of abuse.
The authorities' investigation vindicated the girls. And the principal? Well, he was fired, and is never to be allowed to work with children again. The girls' stories and the experiences of the Child Rights Ambassadors were used for preventive work in other schools in Mozambique.
Sara, Maria Rosa's friend whose pictures the principal took and showed to other girls, says that now she knows that what happened to her, and the other girls violated their rights. "A principal should take care of his students. The opposite of the principal we had. He should never be allowed to work with children ever again."
