give up’
Charlene Smith spoke to a gang-rape survivor who refuses to let her attackers get her down
Eastern Cape mother Amy Brown is the first South African woman who is HIV- positive after being gang-raped to have the courage to speak out.
She miscarried what would have been her third child a week after the rape because of the anti-retroviral treatment she was taking in an attempt to ensure she would not contract Aids. The drugs are not recommended for pregnant women.
Last October Brown (31) was gang-raped in her second-floor Johannesburg flat in front of her two children. She immediately took the anti-Aids drugs AZT and 3TC – but in March, after testing HIV-negative for five months, was diagnosed HIV-positive.
In what appeared to be an act of racial revenge, her nine-year-old son recently tied a black child to a tree, ”in the way we were tied up”. Brown’s son took a hose ”and beat the other child to a pulp”.
Brown takes a deep breath. ”I asked him, ‘What did he do that you did this?’ and he said, ‘Nothing.’ For my child that is abnormal behaviour. None of us is violent.”
She and her husband, an Eastern Cape farm manager, cannot afford to send the nine- year-old boy to a psychologist. They would have to take him to Johannesburg for therapy, but the traumatised boy refuses to return to the city where the rape took place. He also refuses to discuss the incident.
Her 13-year-old son ”seems fine. But the other evening he was talking in his sleep, and was saying over and over again, ‘Aids, Aids, Aids …”’
Brown and her husband, Alan, moved to Johannesburg seven months before the rape to be closer to her family. Brown worked for the ambulance services, counselling rape survivors. Her sons went to schools in Southdale where they lived.
A year ago her husband was working night shift and she was at home with her sons. The eldest was asleep in his bed, and the younger one was tucked in with her.
”It was about 9pm. I heard a noise in the bathroom, as though things were falling off the windowsill. It was a windy night, so I asked my little one to have a look. He said, ‘Mommy, there is someone in the bathroom.’ As I looked up there were three men in the bedroom and one was still coming through the window.
”They told us to be quiet and tied us up with shoelaces. They left my eldest sleeping while they took everything. They were there for three hours. They made the boys watch while they took turns raping me. They then walked out of the front door.
”When I realised they were out of the flat I told my youngest son to wiggle down to me; I helped free him. I asked him to get a knife, but he was in such a state he began crying and could not find one. I managed to get my feet loose, and went to the kitchen. I found a knife and told him to cut me loose. He cried and said he was frightened he would cut me, but he managed to cut me free without hurting me. I went to get help.
”The people in the flat below said they heard people scuffling and things being thrown, but said they did not want to get involved. Another neighbour said she saw black people putting things from our flat in a brown car but did nothing.”
Brown took her children and drove to her husband’s work.
”The flying squad saw me going through robots at a dickens of a speed. They cut me off and got out with guns. I said you can lock me up later, I have to get my husband, I’ve been raped. They said they would follow but I soon lost them. I got to my husband and said I’ve been raped and we’ve been robbed. I collapsed and I can remember him saying, ‘No, not now, tell me what happened.’
”He took me to the Booysens police station and I collapsed again. I was then taken to the Hillbrow district surgeon.
”The next day my priest came to see me and took me to his private doctor who said we had to get Retrovir [AZT] and 3TC. The church paid, it was more than R3 000. I was 11 weeks pregnant and the doctor said Retrovir and 3TC are not approved for pregnancy but you have to take it. I lost the baby a week later.”
By January, the Brown family moved back to the Eastern Cape. ”It has mountains, fresh air and animals. It is a good place for my children.”
She went for her six-week HIV test and the result was negative. At three months the result was again negative.
”I was thrilled. I spoke to a lot of doctors after I was raped and some said the incubation period for the virus is five months, some said eight weeks, one said two years. I said to my husband, ‘For the next two years we must practise safe sex.’
”Each time I went for a test I had to travel 400km to Bloemfontein. In March I went for my six-month test. I phoned the doctor for the results. He didn’t want to give them at first, but I said I can’t afford to drive 400km just to get results. He told me I was positive.
”A lot of people ask if I feel like I’ve been given a death sentence. HIV is not Aids – it is like flu instead of pneumonia. It does not have be a death sentence if I keep my system healthy.”
But the result was still a shock. ”Before the one man raped me he nicked me on my ankle with a knife. It took seven months before it healed. I said to my husband I have HIV.”
Brown, a bubbly petite brunette, talks without rancour – except for her opinion of the police. A week and a half after she was raped Sergeant Enoch Rasekhokha from the sexual offences unit in Braamfontein came to her flat. ”He knocked on the door and said, ‘Open the security gate.’ I said, ‘Who the hell are you?’ He said, ‘I want to come in.’ I would not open the door. He then said he was a police officer but never showed me identification.
”I gave him my statement but never heard from him until two months ago when he called and said he was reviewing the case.”
Rasekhokha did not respond to a Mail & Guardian request for comment.
Brown continues in her strong, optimistic voice. ”The quicker you accept things in life the better. But some people are so insensitive, they say to me, ‘It has been a year, get over it.’ Others ask, ‘Why are you so sleepy?’ but I only get two hours’ sleep a night because I am still so frightened.
”The people who raped me have ruined my life. But I have the choice to lie down and die, or to live. I’m not going to let them get me down.
”When I was given the anti-retrovirals the doctor told me there was an 80% chance of me not contracting the virus. I thought, and still think, if there is a chance, why not? But I am angry that the government does not give the drugs free to all … who are raped.”