Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) is encouraged about a series of Sowetan‘s and TimesLIVE’s in-depth, insightful and critical articles reporting on a child who was denied entry into his school because he wore a cultural bracelet. What is more encouraging is that these articles look deeper into the issue of culture, religion, constitution and cultural diversity and, expose the challenges and realities that might be facing both learners and their parents in South Africa. While we are generally pleased with the reporting of these articles, we cannot help but nominate the same articles as a series of missed opportunities^[1] and not outright GLADs[2] simply because the publications failed to access the child at the centre of the seven articles published within a space of five days. 

The following are the articles under discussion; “No beliefs are above any others” (Sowetan, 27/07/2020), “Pupil denied entry to his school for wearing isiphandla” (Sowetan, 27/07/2020), “Pupil told to wait for isiphandla to fall off or cut it off” (Sowetan, 27/07/2020), “Isiphandla pupil free to return to Christian school” (Sowetan, 29/07/2020), “Traditional leaders fume after Joburg school rejects pupil wearing isiphandla” (TimesLIVE, 29/07/2020), “School within its rights to bar isiphandla” (Sowetan, 30/07/2020), “Parents of boy barred for wearing isiphandla demand apology” (Sowetan, 31/07/2020). All these articles talk about a nine-year-old boy who was initially prevented from attending school because he was wearing an isiphandla, a “traditional goat hide wristband”. Some of the articles report that later on, after the involvement of several bodies including the department of education, the child was allowed back in school.

We commend Sowetan and TimesLIVE and all the journalists responsible for these articles for withholding the child’s identity. This ensured the child’s protection from potential further discrimination.

Our concern though is that none of the stories have the voice of the child, with the exception of one which is an opinion piece. The lack of the child’s voice to give his views on the matter is why MMA is giving Sowetan and TimesLIVE a Missed Opportunity.

Not accessing children sometimes limits the quality of the story in terms of standards of reporting on children and issues facing them. Additionally, it undermines the views and roles of children in media and especially in coverage about them. Children have knowledge and understanding of the world around them and so having their views added in stories about them enriches those stories.^[3]

While MMA commends Sowetan and TimesLIVE for taking an interest in issues of discrimination on the grounds of cultural beliefs especially when children are involved and, for reporting passionately about this issue, we call on the publications to include the views of the children involved in these stories when it is in the children’s best interest.

By Ntsako Manganyi

^[1] A missed opportunity is a story in which children were not accessed when they could have been.

[2] GLADs are awarded when an article accesses a child or reports the article in the child’s best interest

^[3] http://54.217.43.239/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/mma_editorial_guideline.pdf