Oprah Winfrey school investigated by authorities for abuse

The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa under investigation for alleged abuse.

Oprah Winfrey school investigated by authorities for abuse The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls near Johannesburg, South Africa has become a target of an abuse investigation by the local police. Meanwhile, school CEO, John Samuel, said that the school is bringing a special team of investigators from the United States to "conduct a fair and impartial inquiry into these claims." And the claims are that a matron at the elite school funded by Oprah Winfrey allegedly "fondled" one of the pupils, and assaulted another, as posted at the weekly paper Rapport. The local police has declined to go into details of the case, but confirmed that the case under investigation involves an alleged child abuse.

The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls opened this year and has been a controversial topic ever since. Strict rules of the academy brought forwards complaints by the parents of the pupils admitted, who are not even allowed to use cell phones and write emails during the week and the parents are allowed to visit only once a month and only with a two-week notice. Two pupils have already left the Oprah Winfrey school under the pretext of "cultural differences". Oprah Winfrey has personally selected all of the 152 pupils at the academy from more than 3,500 applications.

Published on 10/25/2007