Harmful sexual behaviours among South African schoolchildren are rising alarmingly: nearly 20 % of adolescents report sexual abuse and 12 % report being forced to have sex (South African Medical Research Council, 2019). Schools and peer settings amplify exposure. Children should be learning healthy boundaries, not being harmed. This urgent crisis demands funding to prevent harm and equip schools to teach and protect. We will be targeting school environments in the Midlands with learners (children) in mind both primary and secondary schools. Teachers and support staff will be included as well as S chool Management Teams (SMTs) and governing bodies. The aim is to build capacity to distinguish healthy, unhealthy, and harmful sexual behaviours; strengthen prevention, reporting, and response in schools. Failing to address harmful sexual behaviours in schools leads to lifelong trauma, disrupted education, and cycles of violence. Society bears heavy costs through healthcare, justice, and lost productivity, while unsafe schools undermine learning and futures. Without prevention, harmful behaviours escalate into adulthood, fuelling gender-based violence. Investing now prevents greater human, social, and economic losses later.

Our intervention creates safer schools by embedding clear safeguarding processes, training staff to manage harmful sexual behaviours, empowering learners with knowledge and self-protection skills, engaging parents, and strengthening links with community services. This whole-school approach reduces mishandled disclosures and harmful peer dynamics, fostering a culture of responsibility, care, and safety.
Unlike reactive programmes, our approach is preventative, working across all school and community levels. It combines staff training, learner workshops, parent engagement, and partnerships with local services. The creation of response teams and empowerment tools ensures schools proactively identify, manage, and prevent harmful sexual behaviours rather than responding only after incidents occur.
Successful implementation will create safe, supportive school environments where learners understand boundaries, teachers confidently respond to harmful behaviours, and parents and communities actively contribute. Incidents of abuse, mismanaged disclosures, and harmful peer dynamics will decrease, and schools will develop a sustainable culture of safety, awareness, and collective responsi

Most existing interventions focus on crisis response, counselling, or policy advocacy, often after harm has already occurred. While valuable, these efforts are largely reactive and rarely integrate all school and community levels in a comprehensive prevention model.
We piloted the intervention in several schools that could afford the package, and results showed increased awareness, improved learner knowledge, and stronger school safety culture. The holistic, preventative approach—engaging learners, educators, management, and communities together, provides confidence in its effectiveness and scalability within the Midlands context.
The biggest challenge lies in working with resource-constrained schools and communities where harmful sexual behaviours may be more prevalent. Limited government department commitment and inconsistent institutional support could also affect sustainability. These realities mean that extra time, flexibility, and stakeholder engagement will be required for long-term success.