Police have arrested and charged a Southern Highlands teacher with raping and impregnating a 14-year-old schoolgirl.
The girl’s family lodged a police report after they found that she was three months pregnant.
The girl named her teacher as the father, saying that they had been having an affair for nearly two years.
Police said that they charged the teacher with statutory rape as the age of consent for sex in Papua New Guinea (PNG) for girls is 16.
Her mother said she was heartbroken to find that the trust she had in the public education system was broken.
We send them to schools to be educated and not preyed upon by their teachers. I have heard about such incidents and most families do not report it.
But I want to have the teacher charged in court for the crime.
My daughter was only 13. She should be sitting for her examination this week like all other students her age.
Instead, she is three months pregnant with the child of her teacher.
The heartbroken mother
Education Minister Jimmy Uguro condemned such incidents of gross misuse and abuse of the trust between teachers and students, calling on the public to report teachers who were having affairs, marrying or having sexual relation with their students to the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).
PNG’s statutory rape law is violated when an individual has consensual sexual contact with a girl under 16 or a boy under age 14.
Boys under age 17 cannot consent to another male.
Having carnal knowledge “against the order of nature” and acts of “gross indecency” between males are also illegal.