A 23-year-old woman from Philippi is devastated after she was raped and fell pregnant. She said the incident happened on Sunday 05 June 2022. The incident happened in Marikana informal settlement in Philippi East where she was staying at the time. Three months after the rape, she found out that she is pregnant.
The woman said the incident happened in the middle of the night when she was alone. Her sister whom she was living with at the time had gone to her boyfriend’s place for the night. The rapist, a man who stayed around her kasi allegedly broke the door and entered the shack the woman was sleeping. The victim said she had never spoken to him before but he only saw him around.
The woman said the man forced himself on her several times during the night after that he forced her to wash. “He said I must wash or else he was going to harm me. He even watched as I bathed to make sure that I cleaned all the semen. He then opened the door and disappeared in the darkness,” the woman said. The woman said it was between 12 and 2 am when the incent occurred,” she said.
In the morning she woke up and told her female neighbour who told her that her case was weak. “She said there is no need to report to the police because the case will go nowhere since I had washed the semen. I was so hurt. I couldn’t open a case at the police station and I also didn’t go to the clinic,” she said.
Three months down the line, the woman found herself pregnant. She gave birth to a baby boy who is two months pregnant. When Ezitshisayo spoke to the woman, she said she always feel filth from what the man did to him and her child is a constant reminder of the unfortunate night.
“I do not work, the sister I live with does not work as well. I’m struggling, I do not have money to buy food for the child and also for myself. When I look at the child sometimes I get very angry at him. I’m thinking of giving him up for adoption because I’m not okay,” she said.
The woman said her rapist disappeared from the Marikana and went on to stay somewhere else. Ezitshisayo encouraged the woman to open a case against the rapist this week. Ezitshisayo Foundation will also secure counseling for her since she never received any since the incident occurred.
