TTUTA head: Expedite sex abuse cases

He made the comment during an interview with radio station i95.5FM. On Friday, Chief Education Officer in the Education Ministry Harrilal Seecaharan told a Joint Select Committee meeting that 19 teachers were under probe for sexual abuse in cases that including incidents of inappropriate touching, “sexting” (the sending of sexually explicit messages and images), hugging and sexual intercourse with students. The matters are being probed by the Teaching Service Commission and Seecharan assured the teachers had been removed from the system pending the outcome of investigations.

He reported at least one of the matters is 13 years-old and stressed the need for such issues to be dealt with in a faster manner.

“TTUTA would not condone any such conduct on the part of teachers,” he said.

He stressed that one of these cases is too much. He also advised members to be careful when interacting with students “because it is easy for an accusation to be levelled against you”. He suggested that for field trips there are teachers of both sexes as a precautionary measure. Doodhai said that we live in a very litigious society and it is easy for someone to be stigmatised or accused of sexual offences.