For 16 days a year, South Africans are asked to become activists against the abuse of women and children.
For its part, the Democratic Alliance strung up 22 486 pairs of girls’ underwear on the Cape Flats, which were meant to represent the number of rapes of girl babies, toddlers and children that were reported in 2004/05.
For Shann Sauls, all it took to escape the cycle of violence was for someone to believe her story.
”I never used to smile. I hardly ate and I was always in a depressed mood. That was me for most of my life. That’s how people knew me,” says Sauls, a pretty, petite single mother of two from Ennerdale, south of Johannesburg.
Sauls broke her silence in June this year after nearly a decade of being sexually assaulted by her stepfather.
Sauls says for as long as she could remember, her life had been controlled by her mother and stepfather. She finally decided she could no longer tolerate being abused and sought help at Ikhaya Lethemba in Braamfontein, a new clinic for people who have been abused.
She laid a charge of rape against her stepfather and one against her mother, as his accomplice, because she did nothing to stop the abuse.
”I didn’t want anything, I just wanted freedom,” she says. ”I did ask her once, ‘What is this, your man wanting to tear off all my clothes and have sex with me?’
”But she just told me to stop making up stories and lying. She didn’t speak to me for three months after that. Now we don’t speak at all.
”He used to come into my room late at night and do his thing and then it was over. Even when I used to bleed, he used to hurt me.”
In June this year, Sauls’s uncle stumbled across a pile of used condoms in her cupboard.
”He was looking for clothes for my son and found everything,” said Sauls.
Sauls told him everything and he has become her biggest supporter.
Evidence
She says she had been collecting the condoms because a nurse at an Ennerdale clinic told her she needed evidence of the rapes.
”I started keeping the condoms and throwing them in every [hidden] place I could find after that.
”I used to take drugs, anything and everything that I could find — cat, speed, weed and cocaine — until I couldn’t feel anything. I used to wear glasses and when I used to walk in the house, no one used to notice me.”
Now she has gone four months without taking a drink or using drugs, and says she’s never been happier.
Sauls says she feels able to make decisions for the first time in her life and is not afraid to cut her hair, or buy a pink tracksuit. She feels totally free.
”I never had the chance to be a child, or a teenager, and I can’t get back all those lost years.
”I tried shooting myself, but the bullet went that way [she points past her head]. Then I put the gun in my mouth, pulled the trigger and nothing happened.
”I tried to hang myself, but the rope broke, I tried to take pills, but it didn’t work. All I wanted was to be free. I got to a point where I felt I could shoot them [parents] and me, and then all my problems would be over. But my children kept me alive,” she says.
‘I didn’t want the child’
Sauls gave birth to her stepfather’s son in 2000 and says at first she didn’t want him near her.
”I didn’t want the child. I tried everything to get rid of it. I tried cutting myself and taking it out, falling down the stairs, everything, but he still came after seven months. He was a healthy baby.
”I never wanted him to be near me when he was born. I used to watch other people playing with him and thought to myself, ‘He’s my son, I should be playing with him,”’ she says.
Sauls is passionate about the 16 Days of Activism against women and child abuse. She says it raises awareness for people to break their silence and come forward.
”There’s not only rape. There’s domestic abuse and child abuse as well. People need to know that they don’t have to tolerate it.”
Sauls also has a nine-year-old daughter from a man who raped her.
She started using anti-depressants when she was 17 and says she’ll probably be on them for a very long time.
”I’m more confident now, but I still have a long way to go,” she says.
Hope
Ikhaya Lethemba, which means Centre of Hope, opened in March last year. The building is still being renovated, but it’s open for people who need help.
It is a government-funded clinic, open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Allison Wainwright, the deputy director, says the clinic is particularly busy on the weekends. Wainwright estimates 250 cases are reported on average every month.
”We are successful, but it’s sad by the number [of cases] we receive. It’s pretty rough in terms of intake. [We have] had a positive impact on the rape conviction rate in Johannesburg.”
”Of these [250] cases, only 150 are medically examined. Not all cases need to be medically examined,” she says.
When a woman is admitted to the clinic, she is examined to gather evidence. There is also a microscope called a colposcope, which is used to examine the cervix to determine if the rape caused any damage.
All the evidence is collated in a sexual-assault crime kit. This is a small brown cardboard box that contains swabs and gloves and a large specimen bottle to gather DNA from the victim. Wainwright explains that the box has to be opened and sealed in front of the victim after every medical examination.
She says the clinic is now preparing for the festive season and working with hotel chains in Johannesburg to provide accommodation to abuse victims.
Wainwright says it’s very hard for men to come forward if they’re being abused, or if they are raped.
”It challenges [their] masculinity and is very demasculinising.”