Last week, Oprah Winfrey’s boarding school for girls in South Africa was hit with it’s second sex scandal in two years when seven students were suspended for allegedly sexually harassing their schoolmates.
This week, the girls are speaking out.
Four of the seven girls were kept in guarded isolation for two weeks before being booted from the school, reports The Star. The girls were excluded from all communication from the school’s pupils and activities – even their meals were brought to them by kitchen staff.
The girls said the first two days were hell. They had sobbed bitterly because they knew they were going to be expelled, and were unable to eat.
“Teenagers are curious and want to experiment with different things,” one of the girls told The Star.
Some of the girls were caught fondling each other, while one was accused of preying on another pupil and forcing her to lie to investigators about it.
The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy School for Girls, located near Johannesburg, opened in January 2007. The school, which houses nearly 200 middle- and high-school girls, offers students free tuition and books.