By Mpho Nkawana
I had just finished writing my matric examinations when my former husband came to pay for lobola in December 2014 to my parents in the dusty streets of Free State. I was in my 20s at the time. The following year, in 2015, I moved to Gauteng for the first time. But little did I know that I would encounter an experience that shaped and changed me forever. It was just a normal day, I left Carletonville using public transport to go to the Free State, where I needed to attend a class; I had to rewrite the mathematics and physical sciences tests. On that day, my husband at the time gently requested the meter-taxi driver to look after me, because I was new in the area and had not become familiar with the surroundings.
The meter-taxi driver needed to drop me off at the Klerksdorp taxi rank where I would connect to a taxi going to the Free State. We arrived in Klerksdorp around 10am and the driver left the car, and when he came back, he said the minibus taxi would only be leaving at around 4pm.
He said he could not leave me alone at the rank. This he siad, was to honour my former husband’s request. He proposed to drive with me to Potchefstroom as he was dropping off commuters who needed meter taxi services. He insisted that I remain under his “care.” 4pm came.
When we got back to the Taxi rank, my phone had run out of battery power, after the driver had borrowed it on our way back. He approached some men who were at the back of the rank, and when he came back, he said the minibus taxi would now be leaving around 6pm. This, according to him, meant that it was no longer safe for me to continue with my trip because it would be extremely late when I got home.
We both sat in the car.
I asked him if he could take me to the nearest cheap hotel. He said they were all expensive and suggested that I stay the night at his sister’s house.
He overpowered me
Left without any choice, I reluctantly submitted to his proposal. He drove past Kanana township in the North West, until we reached one of the informal settlements.
Deep down it was becoming palpable that something was off. We arrived at one of the shacks in the informal settlement and he went outside to call one of his friends.
They caucused for a while, and both came to the car. The driver’s friend grabbed my bag, threw it inside the shack and demanded that I get inside. I was so worried and terrified. When the friend left, the driver locked the door and forced himself on me. I tried to fight but he overpowered me. After he was done raping me, he said that he was going to change the car. I begged him not to lock the door of the shack given that it was already dark, and that he could keep my cellphone.
He agreed.
I peeped through the holes in the shack as soon as he left, and I ran to a nearby shack for help. No one responded, and without anyone willing to help me, I was forced to go back to the same shack. When I arrived back at the shack, there was another man standing outside the shack by a car. He kept calling the name “Thapelo” and I did not know who that was. I asked him who he was calling. He asked: how come you do not know the name of “your boyfriend”?
I explained that the Thapelo he is referring to kidnapped and raped me. I was never meant to be in the North West. Upon hearing my story, he accompanied me to another woman who lives a few houses away from the perpetrator’s shack. He explained the ordeal to the woman, and she eventually allowed me to stay overnight.
“Baby, I was so stressed where have you been?”
In the morning, the woman gave me water and asked me to bath, an offer which I respectfully declined with the hope to preserve the evidence. This seemed to upset her and she called the man who brought me to her. The man said in a firm voice: “Get into the water and bath.”
I bathed.
They said to get my clothes from the perpetrator’s shack we needed to make up a story. The devised plan was to call the perpetrator and tell him that there was a lady looking for him. He arrived around 7am. When the driver got there, he smiled, touched my chin and said: “Baby, I was so stressed where have you been?”
He was not aware that the other man and the woman already knew that he kidnapped and raped me. I explained, as per the plan, that I was looking for him the previous night when he did not come back, and I ended up getting lost.
He went inside the shack to take some KFC meat that he bought with my money the previous night and gave it to that man and the lady as a gesture of gratitude.
He gave me my phone and loaded my bag in the car. The other guy pleaded with him to make sure that I got to the taxi rank. When I got into the minibus taxi, I switched on my phone and called my husband at the time to explain what had happened to me.
I still wanted to get home in the Free State, I insisted. I went to the clinic, and they told me to go to SAPS. The officers took me to a hospital for a medical checkup.
Identify where the rape took place
After two days, I received a call from a detective in Klerksdorp to inform me that they will come to fetch me. They suggested that we drive to the informal settlement to help them identify the shack where the rape took place.
After an hour without sight of the perpetrator, I spotted the man who grabbed my bag and threw it inside the shack on the night of the attack. The detectives called the man and instructed him to make sure that when they come back around 10pm, that the perpetrator must be there. If he fails to do this, they said, they would be forced to arrest him for aiding and abetting. Indeed, he made sure that the perpetrator was present, and he was subsequently arrested.
He was soon out on bail.
But now came another challenge, the court process is a lengthy and tormenting process. A close family member, who is the pillar of my strength, requested that I drop the case. Do you know why?
Because she could not support me to travel back and forth between Free State and North West for trial. Without support and strength, I dropped the case because I could not relive the ordeal that may take years until justice is delivered.