Victim Offender Impact Panel..the Story
Rape panel at Ekuseni Correctional Facility, 7 April 2006
N speaking to panel of men convicted of rape
Poem. . .
All I wanted to say about the poem: you guys who rape, in here or out there, don’t even know what it does to your women. If you have already been raped, you wish that this person had killed me already, you think he’d better have taken the fun and killed you. If you find someone and try to have an affair, you just push him away. It’s getting hard when you have to sleep with that person who says that he loves you and you have to push him away. We feel like we don’t know what to wear because they do this whether you wear a miniskirt or long trousers. So I want to know from them what we should wear and what we are owing them. Why are they are doing this? Why they are raping us? Like others who are raping small kids, like 16 year old kids.
First it happened to me when I was coming from school, when I was doing Standard 8. All I knew at that moment was I was loving everyone; I loved my school, my books, my parents, even boys outside. I had brothers; I never thought of bad things from boys. I was a child, a virgin. What was I supposed to wear? I was wearing a miniskirt and a simple top. This guy who did this, I knew him. After, I went to the police station and the police officer said, “You asked for it,” with what I was wearing. This guy came to me, asking for my help; he was doing the same course, Commerce, though not at my school. I said I would help him. I was a child; I didn’t think about bad things, but his mind was old enough to know what he wanted from me. He raped me, he forced himself on me. He didn’t even take two minutes on me and I was already pregnant.
After, I was shaking, my clothes were torn. I didn’t know what to tell my friends; how could I tell them? I went to the police station; I found this man, and he asked what I was wearing. I told him, “This,” and he said I was asking for it. On the way home I met my sister’s friend and she took me to her place. We went to her house and I asked her not to tell anybody. She gave me some water to wash myself and have a bath. While I was in the bath she phoned my sister; my sister came and brought some clothes for me to change into. I told her, “I asked you not to tell anyone but you phoned my sister.” I told my sister that you must not tell my mother. My sister didn’t tell my mom.
I went back to school and continued with school. This thing was haunting me. After seven months my mother found out because I was having nightmares and fighting off this person at night; she wondered who I was fighting. She took me to the doctor and found out I was pregnant and she wanted to kill me. She wanted me to tell her who did this, what happened. After explaining what happened to me, my mom and the doctor sat down with me and tried to console me. But it didn’t work for me; it felt like they wanted me to feel that pain again. We went back home but it felt like my mom wanted me to go out of her house because I had already brought . . . . I went to my grandmother’s house and on the way I met this guy and told him, “You see that I am pregnant, what do you want?” I was afraid of him, shivering, shaking, thinking he was here to finish what he started. At my grandmother’s I was shivering and crying a lot. My uncle asked what was wrong, I told him, and then they went outside looking for him.
After that rape I had a baby from that. Now she’s Grade 10. She looks like me but she is more beautiful. That was my first rape. Rape is a hard feeling, very hard. You can’t take it.
Then the second rape. These three guys were in a car; there was a driver and these two guys. They came out from the car, pointed the gun on me, and forced me into the car. I was wearing my jeans; I was sick that day, having the flu. I was hiding my body but these guys didn’t see that. What was I supposed to wear? This time I was wearing long pants. What is that thing that they need so badly? What is wrong? Most of them have girlfriends but they do not take their girlfriends; they come for innocent people. Why do they do this? If this can happen to their mothers or sisters or daughters, think about it and tell me how they would feel about it. We don’t know what exactly you need from us because again rape can make you sick and now I am six years HIV positive. Six years HIV positive.
If these people are not arrested, or if they come back from prison, they will continue spreading disease. Can you love me with this disease? If I was their girlfriend and sleep with them without a condom and was putting this disease on them, would I be killing them? But you are doing this to us. I’m not your lover, not your partner, but you force yourself to me. You put your penis inside my vagina, and you are forcing yourself until you come. What is all that? Because I am not your lover. How am I supposed to feel? We scream, we shout, we ask you to kill us if you are doing that, but in the end you do not kill us. But in a situation like this, do you think I can get married?
Besides that, you do it again to a child from the age of 5, 7 10 years. She doesn’t know anything; it’s the first time. These minor kids are not even seeing menstruation, she is just a child. But you do that to her, and then you promise that you will buy her a bicycle, and other children are watching and you promise to buy them things and she is screaming and asking you to stop that it’s painful and calling you brother or uncle, yet you continue. What do you call this?
If we are HIV positive, can you marry me knowing that I slept with you and slept with you in a gang rape? I’m your girlfriend, but can you marry me? I can’t get married because when I come with my results telling you I am HIV positive, I can’t get married. Look at me. I’ve got my rings [takes rings off]. That one belongs to my kids. The red one belongs to my rape because it’s a symbol of rape, it’s a red stone, and it means I’ve already got married with AIDS and my kids. There’s no one who will come from heaven or under the ground and propose marriage. I can look nice, I can look beautiful, I can have a good body. But if that person finds out I’m HIV positive and asks where it came from and I tell him it comes from rape, maybe three or four guys, do you think he will take it? He will see that I’m HIV positive, I’ve been raped, and I’m already finished. So how do you think he will take it? How do you think he will take it?
Soon enough I’m going to die. I am going to be sick, I’m going to lose my body. I’m going to have the disease. When people look at me-young kids-will they wish to be like me? I’m going to leave my mother behind and my mom is not working; what will happen to my kids? I am the only person for them.
I am angry. I’m like a hyena who’s wearing the skin of a sheep. Inside I feel angry and I wish I could kill. I’m bitter, and I don’t need a man next to me during that time. It’s only a few times-three times, I counted-that you can find a man who can say “I love you” and you want to say you love him back, and then he will hold your shoulder and tell you that “I love you even with that HIV status of yours.”
We women are different. When you love a man who comes to you and says he is HIV positive, we say, “I love you,” and why should we do this? If it’s you who’s going to propose to a girl and say “I’m superman,” and you know that you were once a rapist, you won’t even mention it. But when that girl turns back to you and says I was once raped, you won’t even look at her, you will stop. Usually we put in our CV our disabilities; can you put into your CV that you are a criminal, a rapist? You won’t put that in your CV if you go out and look for a job.
When you come out from this place, what will happen? Think about this and ask yourselves what do you want in your life when you come out from this place. You hold your penis and ask it what does it want? When you see a panty you put it where it doesn’t belong. You put it where it doesn’t belong, and others do it to your mothers and your mothers are afraid to talk about it. They do it to their mothers, their mothers are afraid to talk about it: “How can I say that I was raped by my son?” A woman can have a child, a girl can give birth to a girl and when you watch the child you see her come out from the shop she has been raped already. You already destroy the future of the innocent child and by that time the child is coming from your sperm.
When I came in here you were whistling to me-most of you and most of them outside in the yard. Now that you know about what I’ve said, do you still love me? Can I go outside and stand there, and if one of those guys comes to propose to me, what will he say when I tell him that I am positive? Think about this and think about us outside. There are so many women who don’t need men in their life any more.
Do you know your status? What if those girls who have been victimized by you are HIV positive? What about them? I don’t think you even know your status.
The pain is not only with the victims; it’s also with your parents, your families. I have met your parents. Most of the parents are not working; one of your mothers is sick and doesn’t have food to eat, but you want them to come and visit you and bring you food. Where do you think they are going to get that food from? If I was your parent I would not come. You don’t really think about your parents, guys, or your victims. But you need your victims and your families to forgive you. “Forgive me, forgive me!” But why should we do that? You need us to forgive you. Why should we do that? If I could find those guys who did that to me and stand next to them, and if one of them asked for forgiveness, and said that regrets it and agrees that I didn’t ask for it, maybe I would forgive him if I knew that he was telling the truth.
You won’t get sentenced if you didn’t do it. When I see a young boy like Superman, I think, “Look at yourself. You are so young, young, young. When you’re grown up what will you do to your wife? You’ll be telling her, ‘You are my wife; I paid lobola for you,’ and you will force yourself to her.”
There is nothing more I can say to you. All I need is that you should feel shame for yourself and feel the pain that we feel as your victims, inside our bodies, inside our hearts. You feel that pain that we feel. Today when you go to bed, you think about that woman you raped, how you pushed her down and forced yourself on her. You think about that when you go to bed. What if it was your mom or your sister you loved so much, coming into the house crying and saying, “I’ve been raped.” Most of you guys are saying you didn’t do it, you just slept with her, you didn’t do it. How can you explain it? If I’m already your girlfriend and you asked me to come with you, I’ll come with you; you won’t have to force me because I will do it for you because I love you. To me, the cases are similar; they have done one thing: rape.
You should grow up in your mind and tell the others not to do this, to stop doing this. Even the ones who are coming to visit you, who are doing this even at night, who don’t know what they are doing, they should stop it.
It’s hard, very hard. There’s nothing more I can say.
