Zita Hansungule is the Senior Project Coordinator for the Centre for Child Law’s Research, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit. Rico Euripidou is groundWork’s Environmental Health Campaigner. He trained as an Environmental Epidemiologist. Promise Mabilo is the coordinator for Vukani Environmental Justice Movement in Action.
Cebile Faith Mkhwanazi’s seven-year-old son loves to play football and often spends his afternoons kicking a ball around with friends near their home in eMalahleni, on the Mpumalanga Highveld.
But Mkhwanazi doesn’t allow her son to play outside for long. The exceptionally high concentration of coal power plants and mines in the area means that towns like eMalahleni, which in Zulu means “place of coal”, are reported to have some of the world’s worst air quality.
While the 14-year-old learner arrested for assaulting Lufuno Mavhunga is set to face the consequences of her alleged actions, the Child Justice Act tries as far as possible to divert minors away from the criminal justice system.
Child Justice Act tries to divert children away from criminal justice system - expert
Share
Pretoria - While the 14-year-old Mbilwi Secondary School learner arrested for assaulting fellow pupil Lufuno Mavhunga will have to face the consequences of her alleged actions, the Child Justice Act tries as far as possible to divert children away from the criminal justice system
This is according to Zita Hansungule of the Centre for Child Law, who is an expert on the child justice system.
The teenager was on Thursday granted R1 500 bail at the Thohoyandou Children’s Court and released into the care of her mother.
First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.
A month before young Lufuno Mavhunga tragically took her own life after being publicly bullied and shamed, allegedly by another learner at her school, Mbilwi Secondary School in Limpopo, another young boy in the Western Cape attempted to take his own life for the same reason.
The grade five learner from a small farm school in Paarl, Joostenberg Primary, had downed six tablets, intending to take the entire container of painkillers, when he was discovered by a family member on Saturday 14 March.
He was given milk to neutralise the minor overdose, the distraught mother said, speaking to
Accused in Lufuno Mavhunga assault back in court
Limpopo high school pupil Lufuno Mavhunga was laid to rest in Thohoyandou, Limpopo, just a week after she took her own life
A 14 year-old limpopo pupil, who was arrested in connection with assault of Lufuno Mavhunga, a fellow learner at Mbilwi secondary school, is expected to make her second appearance in the Thohoyandou Children’s Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, 20 April 20, 2021.
The teenage girl made her first appearance in the dock on Friday after being arrested for attacking Mavhungu.
Video of the assault went viral on social media and is believed to have resulted in Mavhunga taking her own life.