Anglican Church archbishop Thabo Makgoba and the high diocesan Bishop Charles May have been accused of turning a blind eye to a jaw-dropping sexual harassment scandal that rocked their Gauteng branch.
The shocking news was revealed in a written complaint by the victim in a letter to Makgoba and his disciples by the woman’s lawyers Nkosi Nkosana Incorporated in November last year. In the complaint, which we have seen, the victim who was a cleaner at the Anglican church, alleged that she was sexually violated by one of the Anglican church’s pastors at the St Boniface Anglican Church in Vosloorus in Ekurhuleni.
She alleged that around March 2018, the perpetrator convened a meeting of staff members to discuss cleaning. “At the end of the meeting he asked me to stay behind. [Name withheld] then asked me why I was so quiet during the meeting and if there was anything bothering me.
“I explained to him that I had personal family problems and asked for pastoral guidance. During the conversation, the pastor started moving his chair closer to me and touched my thighs. I told him that I was uncomfortable and I immediately left the office,” reads the complaint.
The victim also alleged the perpetrator told her he was not going to take advantage of her while she was still vulnerable. She claimed that sometime after the meeting he would from time to time tell her that he loved her. She also alleged that the man of the cloth also complained that she was in love with some men in the church. At a later stage, she alleged, the perpetrator rocked up at her house unannounced on four consecutive occasions.
“During each visit he asked me to be his girlfriend and, on each occasion, I rejected his advances and felt very uncomfortable by the pastor’s behaviour considering his position in Anglican church. “During one of these visits at my home, he told me that he wanted to dismiss the parish clerk and then offer the position to me, only if I would become his girlfriend, but I still rejected him,” reads the statement.
After she spurned the perpetrator’s coital advances, said the victim, she and her other colleagues were dismissed from the church. “[Name withheld] said the reason for our dismissal was that the diocese had issued a directive to all its parishes instructing the parishes to terminate older employees, in order to avoid contracting the Covid virus and also that the church did not have funds to continue paying them.
“However at the later stage I learned that the Anglican church appointed other people, and all the new employees were not members of the St Boniface Parish, (sic)” said that complainant.
The victim said she felt strongly that the only reason she and others were dismissed was because she refused to know the perpetrator in the biblical sense. She said she appealed her dismissal when she wrote a letter to Makgoba and Nzimande on April 9, 2021. When she made a follow up a week later with the church’s provincial executive officer Dr Makhosi Nzimande, he told her that she needed to address the matter to May, who was in her diocese, but there was no response from him.
She wrote another letter to Nzimande and May, where she expressed her pain and disappointment at the treatment she was receiving from the high office of the Anglican Diocese, but until today, she said, she had not received a response. She said she wanted Makgoba to institute an investigation into the sexual harassment allegation she levelled against the perpetrator. She also wants Makgoba to investigate why she and her colleagues lost their jobs, and if found that their dismissals were unfair, they should be reinstated.
After she found no joy from the Anglican church, she finally roped in her lawyer Thabo Thobela, a senior associate at Nkosi Nkosana Incorporated, who wrote a letter on November 29, 2022, lamenting that the church had failed to entertain the victims’s complaint.
“We know (sic) address this letter to you in the hopes that you and your office will urgently look into this matter and assist our clients. The plight of abuse against women will continue to persist if matters such as this one, go unattended. The behaviour of cannot be said to be in line with the pastoral standards, values and practices, thus your prompt intervention is required.
“We have informed the complainant of her rights to open a criminal case against and she expressed her hopes of having this matter handled internally. We hope that her approach will not backfire on her and put her in a position where she will have to approach the authorities. Whilst your intervention unfolds, please ensure that does not speak to the complainant, either directly and/or in directly.”
Makgoba said on Friday that the church’s department of Safe and Inclusive is handling “such a painful matter”.
“There are church laws governing how we deal with such painful and regrettable circumstances,” said Makgoba who later referred to the church’s Rosalie Manning to comment. Manning said:
“The Archbishop’s team is actively investigating the complaint. The investigation remains ongoing.”
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