Be on the lookout: when violence follows children into the classroom

For many students, school is meant to be a safe space, a place to learn, grow and dream. However, for Beline U., a high school graduate from Gicumbi District, the classroom became another site of fear, stigma and silent suffering.

Raised in a home marked by domestic violence, Beline U. had already witnessed her mother endure Gender-Based Violence at the hands of her father, who was later arrested and imprisoned.

When she transferred to a nearby day school to stay close to her mother and help care for her siblings, she hoped for stability. Instead, she encountered a new form of violence, one that was less visible, but just as damaging.

“At first I thought it was normal,” she recalls. “They called it jokes, but those words destroyed me mentally.”

Classmates made sexually suggestive comments, mocked her family history, and hurled insults that cut deeply. Some told her she was “useless like her mother.” Others threatened sexual violence, mocking her for “sending men to rot in jail.” Over time, the harassment wrinkled her confidence, affected her academic performance and dimmed her love for school.

“I started questioning myself at the time,” she says. “It affected my mental health, my studies, and how I saw the future.”

Only after finishing high school did, Beline U. find the courage to open up to a family member, who arranged therapy and offered support. Her story, however, is far from unique.

Across Rwanda and beyond, School-Related Gender-Based Violence (SRGBV) exists.

Broadly defined by UNESCO and UN Women as acts or threats of sexual, physical or psychological violence occurring in and around schools, SRGBV is driven by harmful social norms, stereotypes and power imbalances. Its consequences are profound: low self-esteem, depression, early and unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, school avoidance, poor academic performance and dropout.

For educators like Faustin Ndayambaje, the problem is rooted not only in extreme cases, but also in everyday attitudes and behaviours that often go unnoticed.

“There is still a big need for awareness, in schools and in communities, about what school-based GBV really is and how damaging it can be,” he says. “It does not only affect the victim, but the entire school and family.”

Ndayambaje notes that victims often suffer in silence, leading to declining performance, loss of confidence, fear of authority, early pregnancy or forced marriage. In some cases, students simply disappear from school.

He admits that even educators can unknowingly contribute to abuse. “When I started teaching, corporal punishment was common. We thought we were correcting students, not harming them,” he reflects. “Even words matter. Some comments from teachers or school officials can deeply hurt without them realising it.”

For him, parents and guardians must play a frontline role, teaching children about their rights, the different forms of abuse, and how to report safely.

SRGBV takes many forms such as sexual harassment and exploitation, corporal punishment, bullying (physical, verbal, social and cyber), and emotional or psychological abuse.

According to the 2023 assessment by the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) of Rwanda, the root causes are deeply intertwined, gender norms and stereotypes, power imbalances in schools, weak safeguarding structures, silence and stigma, and entrenched patriarchal attitudes in communities.

To tackle the problem, YWCA Rwanda, with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and in partnership with Never Again Rwanda (NAR), has been implementing a project titled “Let’s Fight against Gender Based Violence (LEFGBV).”

Lydia Mitali, programme manager for LEFGBV at YWCA Rwanda, says the initiative has begun to shift both policy and practice.

“The project was established specifically to address school-based GBV, and we are already seeing tangible results,” she says.

Among the achievements is the development and distribution of school safeguarding guidelines across participating institutions. YWCA also contributed inputs to Rwanda’s GBV law to ensure school-related violence is clearly captured in legislation. Teachers, head teachers and mentors have been trained to detect, prevent and respond to abuse.

One of the most impactful interventions, Mitali notes, has been the creation of student clubs that promote awareness, peer support and reporting. Another impact is that YWCA also helped bring back students who had dropped out because of GBV, and they have strengthened dialogue between schools and communities.

Awareness campaigns also have further reinforced the message that violence has no place in education.

In November 2023, YWCA Rwanda, NAR and SDC conducted a comprehensive policy analysis and assessment of SRGBV among female students in 10 secondary schools in Bugesera and Kicukiro districts, as well as in two higher learning institutions, IPRC Kigali and the University of Lay Adventists of Kigali (UNILAK).

The study aimed to generate evidence to inform tailored interventions and identify gaps in policy formulation and implementation.

 In total, 661 respondents from secondary schools and 335 from higher learning institutions were interviewed. The assessment disclosed that 45 per cent of the students interviewed experienced school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV), with girls accounting for 53 per cent of the victims.

Verbal abuse and bullying were reported by 31.5 per cent of respondents, sexual harassment by 24 per cent, and corporal punishment by 43 per cent. As a result, 22 per cent considered dropping out of school, while 12 per cent faced pregnancy or early marriage.

Only 8 per cent of cases were formally reported, with 62 per cent going unreported. Students, teachers, and school staff were identified as perpetrators in 64 per cent of the cases.