Daily Sun (July 15 2014) - AFTER the birth of her rapist's baby she went to open a case at the police station. But she got no sympathy from the cops.
THE STATION COMMANDER EVEN TOLD HER TO DRAW A PICTURE OF THE OLD MAN'S PENIS INSTEAD.
"My uncle and I tried three times to report the rapes to the police but we were turned away," the 17-year-old girl told Daily Sun.
"We went to the station commander who told me that since I was raped I would know what the man's penis looked like."
She said they had no choice but to let the case go.
The girl was only one year old when her mother died. What could have been the tragic story of a child growing up as an orphan seemed to have a happy outcome when the child's aunt came to her rescue and took her in. The girl never knew her father but she grew up happily with her relatives, even accepting her aunt's husband as a trusted father figure.
But in January 2013, the man, now 70, suddenly changed.
The girl from Kwaggafontein near Kwamhlanga, in Mpumalanga told Daily Sun the man started touching her backside and thighs, and then her private parts, whenever the wife was out of the house. Then he went on to offer the girl money for sex and when she refused to take the money, he forced himself on her.
"He threatened to kill me if I told anyone," she sobbed. "He would give me R10 and tell me to go and buy ice cream and chips."
When the girl fell pregnant she told her aunt what was happening but when the aunt confronted her husband, he denied ever touching the girl. And the next day he disappeared.
The aunt died in December last year, shortly after her niece gave birth.
The girl said she and her 24-year-old uncle tried without any success to report the rape to the police at the Kwaggafontein Police Station.
The uncle said he was surprised by the station commander's attitude.
"She was cruel and did not have any sympathy for the girl.
"She said she would need my niece to draw the man's penis as it might be required in court."
He said the cops didn't take any action even after the intervention of social workers.
"My niece is struggling to raise the baby on her own at the same time as she is supposed to be focusing on her grade 8 studies," he said.
"And now this man has vanished. He will never be found."
SAPS spokesman Brigadier Selvy Mohlala said the cops or the station commander had no right to refuse to open a case for the girl.
"She should go back and ask the station commander to open a case for her," he said.
"If she does not get help, then we will assist her."
Mohlala also said the girl should go to the provincial commissioner's office and complain about the commander.
See the Daily Sun mobi site for more on this and other stories....
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