Family Considers Legal Action By Frederick Philander WINDHOEK Family shame and embarrassment are apparently the reasons for the sudden voluntary withdrawal of a Grade 11 girl from a Khomasdal secondary school on Friday. She features prominently in a pornographic suggestive video clip that has been distributed among school learners in the capital. A story about her was run in last Friday’s edition of New Era. The 17-year-old girl’s mother on Friday morning informed the principal of David Bezuidenhout Secondary School, Dennis Fredericks, about her decision to take her daughter out of school, preventing her from being expelled by the Ministry of Education. New Era learned that the girl’s family is considering legal action against the perpetrator who produced the obscene video clip, which apparently forms part of a four-part series of explicit sexual expositions of the girl. Despite her departure from the school, the majority of the learners pledged their unconditional support for the girl, who is apparently now in hiding in her home in Vaalhoek. “The obviously disappointed mother was at the school early on Friday morning and formally informed me that she was taking her daughter out of the school, a spontaneous reaction to the pain the daughter caused her mother, I suspect,” the principal, Dennis Fredericks, told New Era on Friday in his office. The mother, who apparently works for a computer business in the capital, returned her daughter’s books to the school the same day. “Did the two have sex in the video clip?” inquired the school’s inspector, Ryno Nieuwoudt, who on Friday morning officially investigated the incident on behalf of the Ministry of Education. At that time, the inspector was probably unaware of the fact that the girl had been voluntarily taken out of the school because later the same morning he took part in a formal educational talk on the facts of life with the school’s learners, part of the damage control caused by the video clip. According to Fredericks, the girl’s mother formally apologized to the school for the shame she has brought to all involved. “The obviously emotionally disappointed mother didn’t say much except that she would inform me in writing about her decision to withdraw her daughter from the school, which she has since done. “I strongly recommended to the mother that the girl receives professional help,” Fredericks said. This pre-emptive action by the mother effectively rendered the ministerial investigation into the incident unnecessary. “Whatever the circumstances how the girl landed herself to be abused in this humiliating manner, we cannot condone her actions nor judge her too harshly. She has been part of the school. On Monday she apologized formally to me,” said the head girl of David Bezuidenhout, Amalia van Wyk, on behalf of the student representative council and the girls at the school. A source close to the family told this newspaper that the perpetrator of the video clip, a 20-year-old male of Tanzanian origin, had an eight-month steady relationship with the girl. The boy is a former learner at a private school run by an education trust. He reportedly completed his Grade 12 last year in Windhoek. “The girl informed me that the video was recorded in August last year under the pretext that he needed something tangible of her to remember her by during his school vacation in Tanzania. “He apparently assured her that he had deleted the clip from his mobile phone, which he obviously did not do. Instead he downloaded it onto his computer prior to sending the obscene clip to a friend,” said the source. Head boy Geoffrey Diebold expressed shock and disappointment on behalf of the male learners at the school. “Some boys found the clip interesting, others rejected it as despicable and totally out of line with the principles of educational decency. Notwithstanding this, the boys at the school are of the opinion that she should be afforded a second chance because she will not be admitted to any other school in the country,” said Diebold. It is believed that the girl is considering emigrating to South Africa or alternatively becoming a part-time student at the Namibia College of Open Learning (Namcol).