16 Days Campaign | ‘My father raped me and nobody believed me including my mother’

I AM 32-years-old and I have four beautiful children. I was two years old when my father went to jail for 10 years. 

I was 12 when I finally had the chance to meet him, and at the same time my mother was an alcoholic and on drugs. She was never home. 

I had to be mother, father, and sister to my two brothers who were younger than me. My eldest brother went to stay with his father because I was never in school. The principal called a social worker and they took me and both my brothers away from my mother. 

We went to stay in a safe house in Manenberg, but this aunt knew my dad and she called him. He would bring us stuff but was unable to let me live with him. We were eventually then sent to a children's home where I had to go to a girls' home and my brothers to a boys' home, and that broke me. 

My brothers were my everything. I stayed there for three years and couldn't handle not seeing my mother for those three years. She never came to visit me or call me. I decided to run away from the home. I ran to my friend's house in Bonteheuwel and then I called my dad. He came to fetch me that evening and it was too late to take me back to the home. 

I then slept at his and his girlfriend's place, and that evening my life took a whole turn when my father decided to rape me.

The next day he took me to school, it was still exams. After school he took me to the home. The decision was made, I'm going to stay with my aunt.

I got to my aunt's place and told my mother what my father did, and her words were, "He won't do that. I mustn't make trouble." 

My father was a gangster and I thought she was scared of that because I was... I left it there and told myself nobody believed me, so life went on. 

My father then came to fetch me sometimes at my aunt's and took me out until one night he did it again, and that is when I told myself, "Nobody believes me. I'm going to tell my aunt." I then told my aunt and she helped me. She is my everything. I made a case against him but my mom was never there to support me.

Today I am a grown, strong woman who had the best aunt to help me through everything.

I am a survivor. I am a warrior.

My message to the girls out there is: don't give up on yourself, and there is help for you if you reach out!

This article forms part of a series of articles written by GBV victims and survivors to be featured during this 16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children Campaign. Full names are being withheld to protect identities.

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