16 Days Campaign: GBV survivor tells her story

I CAME to the shelter, through abuse.

The perpetrator used to severely hit me when I was pregnant until I decided to run away from him. This is how I eventually ended up at Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children. I lost my first pregnancy because of this harassment. This perpetrator used to harass me verbally, beat me physically, and even refuse me to talk to anyone.

I had a miscarriage due to being forced to have sexual intercourse whilst I was already not feeling well. Even thereafter, I requested assistance to be accompanied to the hospital. He ignored me because he had satisfied his body.

Still, I felt pregnant again. It was not because I wanted to, but because I was financially dependent on him. He knew that I had no family around South Africa. That is how he treated me like his toy. This pregnancy was a real hell in my life at the time. I had realised that he was using drugs. It was too late. I was just kept in his cage.

He even started to lock me inside the house and put the bucket for me in case I needed to use the toilet. He even slept with me without bathing and forced himself on me at times when I objected. 

I ended up contracting sexually transmitted diseases (STIs) and he refused that I go for medical treatment. These STIs were just with me and I feel that I gave premature birth as a result of that. I was seven months pregnant. I almost lost this child too as I was continuously assaulted. 

One of the factors that made things worse was that I had found myself a job that time. He even beat me for that because he didn’t want me to be with other women. By the grace of God, I did not lose my child; she survived, but was born prematurely

The abuse never stood up to me. It was now like a different story every day, so that he could beat me or insult me. Unlike others, I never enjoyed my pregnancy up until the time I gave birth. All I wanted was to be with my child and once she is strong enough, leave this man.   

On day three the child was born, he ran away with my baby and left her with his ex-wife. I decided to go to the police station to open a case. The police helped me to find my child. When the child was two months old, he started to accuse me of sleeping with another man. That day I said, I cannot wait for my child to be three months old, I am done with this man and we had a fight again. I went to the police station. The police took me to Carl Bremmer hospital and again I was diagnosed with an STI, this time I got treated. They looked for an alternative safer place and the Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children eventually became a new home. 

I was welcomed with love and the highest care. The first person I started to talk to (telephonically) even before I arrived, was Abeeda, one of the house mothers. I just felt acceptance and love from her voice. That was the love I was crying for, for years. 

I was assigned to social worker Amaarah Arendse. She was just an angel sent to me. We travelled through my healing journey. It was as if she was always next to me and I became stronger each day. I found myself again.

Social worker Amaarah played a big part in my healing. She told me to open and take whatever Saartjie Baartman gives me. From that day on, every house mother was like my own mother and they treated me like their own.

Saartjie Baartman gave me their time, food to eat, bed to sleep, warm water to bathe. They clothed me and my baby and (to top it off) we received our own private space with full groceries every month. We just got everything we need with my child. I was further assisted through a spiritual healing journey. I was prepared for the world outside the shelter through being skilled in home based care, basics in computer literacy and First Aid levels one, two and three. I was further assisted to go home to Zimbabwe to come back and be part of the ladies Sewing project with some monthly payment. They are going to place me on another high level project of sewing again. Life goes on and now I look forward to owning my own sewing machine.

I am now proud of myself that I can even share my story. I didn’t do it for me only, but for my baby too. I feel that we could not live in an abusive relationship any longer. We grew up in homes where at times our parents were abused. Even our partners grew up in such homes. Spiritually and physically, I was getting strong. Thank you to everyone who was involved in building a new meat Saartjie Baartman centre for Women and Children. Thank you aunty Bernadine; aunty Dorothea; and aunty Miriam.

This is the first of a series of articles by GBV victims and survivors to be featured during this 16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children Campaign. Names are being withheld to protect the writers identity.