MAPHUMI Mkhonza (not her real name) dreamt of becoming a medical doctor one day. She came second in her grade 7 class last year, but she had little to be excited about because by then she already knew she was pregnant. Her father raped her repeatedly. Her immediate future was to sit at home and raise a child.
Mkhonza (14) is one of many unfortunate children who missed the good old days of growing up in Driefontein, once an internationally renowned community regarded as a symbol of resistance against forced removals.
She wipes her tears from her eyes, looking down with sorrow, as she tells her story. Her nightmare began last July when her father, a worker at the local coal mine, came back from home and demanded tea. ”There was a death in one of our neighbours’ families and my mother had gone to sleep there,” said Mkhonza. ”My father came back and, as usual, he wanted tea. I poured it and went back to sleep.
”He followed me to my bed and started opening my legs. I turned away but he grabbed me and forcefully removed my panties and he raped me for about 10 minutes.
”He threatened that if I told my mother he would kill us and throw our bodies in the Heyshope Dam.”
Mkhonza took the threat seriously because she knew more than 50 bodies have been recovered from the dam since it was built. Her father continued to rape her until she fell pregnant. The matter was revealed when Mkhonza’s mother wanted to know who had impregnated her.
”But I received no answer. I then asked her father to talk to her,” says her mother. ”But he could not be bothered.” In fact, her father spoke to her behind his wife’s back.
”He suggested that I tell my mother that I was raped by unknown people,” says Mkhonza. ”He also suggested that I choose any boy of my age and say he was the father. He promised to give me R300 every month if I didn’t disclose the truth to my mother.”
Mkhonza’s mother took her to the clinic. The father accompanied them. He suggested their daughter should abort the pregnancy. ”Then I realised he was taking this too far, and I told my mother that he was the one. He raped and impregnated me,” said Mkhonza.
The mother was angry and disappointed. ”When I heard that, I went straight to the police, without a word to him. He disappeared for a month and the police could not find him. He then returned and begged for forgiveness,” she said.
But Mkhonza and her mother defied their extended family’s advice that they should forgive him and forget the incident. They called the police and the father was arrested. He is still in custody. His case was postponed because the hearing coincided with the birth of Mkhonza’s child.
Since then, Mkhonza, her mother and her three brothers have been shunned by the father’s family. ”They came and took all of his belongings, leaving us with an empty house,” said her mother.
— The Teacher/Mail & Guardian, July 26, 2000.
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