Charlene Smith
The police have arrested a suspect in my rape case. Since then the calls he had been making to me after the rape, two or three times a day, have stopped.
During the calls he vowed to return, threatened my life and asked me to put more money into my bank account for him to withdraw. Rape and blackmail.
Now we have to see whether or not the police have an effective prosecution. The police have already opposed bail at his first appearance in court. Apparently he has an outstanding murder charge against him.
Although police were wonderful on the night I was raped, there was bungling afterwards. Five days later the police told their commissioner’s office that there was no such case. I went as high as the office of the Minister of Safety and Security, Sydney Mufamadi, and began complaining.
Gauteng MEC for Safety and Security Paul Mashatile showed deep caring after I complained to him. He called me personally – a call logged on my answering machine directly after one by the rapist. When I told him this, he sent a wonderful female police officer and another official from his office to my home to hear my concerns.
They came as a surly locksmith was unlocking my home. I’ve become absent-minded since the rape and twice locked myself out of my home – he charged R250 to unlock the door.
The following day I changed all the locks and paid nearly R400. I have yet to fix the bathroom window I broke, the bar sawed out of my security gate by the rapist, or to place the lock on my gate the security guards have asked for. The financial burdens placed on a victim after a crime are enormous and not everything that needs to be done can be done; it’s that simple.
After the rape my daughter began having panic attacks, fainting and crying, but she is also getting stronger because of the power of love from everyone who knows.
Critically important to me and my family have been the very many people who have called, e-mailed, sent flowers, left cards.
A rapist tries to remove your dignity and sense of personhood; uncaring hospitals and inept and underresourced policing systems reinforce that and increase a sense of terror, but nothing can conquer the power of love, and that is what I and my children have been shown in abundance.
My black friends have come up with a new name for me, Busisiwe, which means ”she who is blessed”. Because of speaking out, my life has become filled with blessings. We have destroyed the rapist’s intent.
If you have been raped, if you are raped, please speak out. People want to stop this. We who have been raped, by our voices have to give those who will help the fuel they need to burn down an uncaring bureaucratic system in the state and private sector, and to eliminate apathy. We destroyed apartheid, this is not more difficult.
I had not wanted my photograph to be used. I did not want people in supermarkets whispering behind their hands, ”There is the woman who has been raped … who may have HIV.”
But on Friday I was called by a youth programme at M-Net and I agreed to go on a live programme that day. I want to speak to young people. There was an overwhelming response from girls aged 13 to 16 who called in. All had been raped, only one had told adults – which means they are at risk of HIV and their sanity.
The one who had told adults, a girl of about 13, had told her parents. They had told her, she said, ”Don’t talk about this, it’s too ugly.” How dare they! What right do parents have to put their own pain ahead of their child’s? That child and her angry, frustrated tears have been in the forefront of my thoughts ever since; she has all my love.
Once you have been raped and you speak out, you enter a secret room which you knew was always there but to which entry was denied until the rape, and within that room are dozens of women and children, many of them prominent women, women you have admired, who who sit in this dark fearful room, silent, believing they are alone despite the claustrophobia of their overwhelming presence.
Speak out. Open the curtains of that room, let in the light, help others to break down the doors and free you from the rapist’s prison.
A top businessman approached me at another function deeply troubled by my battle to get the anti-retroviral drugs that will save my life if the rapist has HIV or Aids (which is information I am not entitled to because the alleged rapist’s constitutional right to privacy is greater than my right to life under the present system).
His 15-year-old niece was gang-raped in December. Her deeply traumatised family were not aware that she needed anti- retroviral therapy. Battling to cope with her pain, they have not taken her for an HIV test. ”I am now so frightened for her,” the businessman said. So am I.
Netcare, which owns the Garden City clinic and Milpark hospital and 41 others nationwide, finally met me this week. They have promised to train their front office and casualty staff to deal with rape survivors. They told me they would inform me when they have devised such a training programme, and I am waiting to hear from them and sit in on one such course. They are also investigating having anti-retroviral starter kits more rapidly available in all their clinics.
Vodacom said they would work on strategies to ensure rape victims or the police could more readily use stolen cellphones to track the suspect, but they too have yet to get back to me with any plans.
Many businesses have contacted me offering help. I don’t want the help for me, I want big business to do something to help the women and children who lack my voice, and my access.
I want district surgeon’s offices in every city, town and village to be revamped and made child friendly. I want Minister of Health Nkosazana Zuma to stop hiding behind press officers who told one news organisation they would not comment, ”because Charlene Smith is just one woman” – I am not, I am the voice of every woman and child who has been raped.
And every woman or man who fails to act allows every rapist to do this. Shame on them.
This is an election year. This government has one of the highest ratios of women in government in the world – but why do those women in government not do anything to stop this crime against other women and children? Have they become so involved in power suits and sound bites they have forgotten how to care?
I and others who have been raped, or who will be raped before this election, don’t care about rhetoric or election promises – we want to know what the parties are going to do now.
The drugs are beginning to make me tired and give me headaches. I don’t want to talk about rape for the rest of my life because I will then be eternally raped. I want to brush off my clothes, dry my tears, clean my house, heal my children and get on with my life.
I want to be just another ordinary mother, woman and journalist. I want you to pick up the baton and carry on running for me and for every woman and child who has been raped, and who has yet to be raped. Please help save a life.