Resources

Blamed for a crime committed against me - Swaziland

By James Hall

NO ONE knows how many teenage girls in Swaziland are HIV-positive. But the correlation between sexual abuse, the growing cases of incest and rising infections among young girls is beyond doubt.

Sexual abuse and incest robs these children of their innocence, romantic dreams, their trust in fathers and hopes of a brighter tomorrow. Their lives will be punctuated by disease. Not surprisingly, there are those who believe that rapists who transmit HIV to their victims should be tried for murder.

Sexual abuse turns even more tragic when a survivor is blamed by her own family for a crime committed against her; people who should be protective and supportive show hostility instead. They take sides with the perpetrator especially if they depend on him for their survival. As Futhi’s story shows, this betrayal adds further to the burden that these abuse survivors must bear.

“My father died last year. I don’t know how he died, but he died in jail. I didn’t go to his funeral. The police would not let me. I was at the halfway house. The police told my guardians it was too dangerous for me to go. They were afraid I could be poisoned.

My family blames me for my father being in prison. They say it wasn’t him that raped me. They believed my father and not me. They called me a liar. I was 13 when my father raped me.

After it happened, I repeated grade six three times. ‘This thing’ that happened to me disturbed me very much. At school I could not concentrate. I am now attending a craft school where I am learning tailoring. Currently I’m stitching a baby duvet. But I will not be making one for my own baby because there will not be any. I don’t want a baby. I don’t want a husband. That’s the way I feel. I only want a boyfriend. I won’t have a baby with my boyfriend. I will use protection.

I’m HIV positive, and I’m afraid. I take 13 pills a day. My family knows I have HIV. I got it from my father. They still blame me. They don’t see that my HIV is my father’s HIV. They didn’t ask where or how I acquired it.

I have a sister who is 12. I saw her last when I was still living at home. We lived in Makanyane, in two huts. My family grows crops. We had no cows or goats, but we had 10 chickens. There is no electricity. Water is fetched from the river. It is clear, and we just drank it without boiling.

I like dogs and I love to play with them. I would like one. I would like a big dog, like a Labrador. They like me too.

My mother left home after my father married a second wife. I was in grade one when she left. I wanted to go with my mother but my father refused. From then on I saw her just once a year.

I lived with my father and stepmother. But when she found out my father was HIV positive, she left. After she left, I was alone with my father. He worked as a security guard at Pigg’s Peak.

He must have drugged me. I suspect he laced the tea he made for me. I woke up and found myself in his room. I did not know how I got there or what was going on. My father was an inyanga (herbalist) and an expert in traditional medicine (umutsi).
I was afraid to ask why I was there. If anything happened, I had no recollection of it. I just went back to my room.

This happened several time. Whenever I left my father’s room, I usually felt sick. I would be hot and feverish. It must have been the effects of the herbs. When I told him I was unwell, he said I must go to hospital. But he wouldn’t take me. I think he was afraid. He simply gave me the money I needed.

At the hospital the nurses said I was ‘sick from sleeping with men”. This is how I knew my father was raping me. They immediately reported the matter to the police.
The police took me back home to Makanyane. They needed to talk to my stepmother because if I was HIV positive, she too was likely to be. She told them she had known she was HIV positive, and that is why she left my father.

We went back to Pigg’s Peak and the police took me to the Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA). Here the officers asked me what had happened. I told them the truth. I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember. They sent me to the Family Life Association of Swaziland (FLAS) where the staff brought me to the halfway house. My stepmother left me there, promising to confront my father. I have not seen her since that day.

I was a good student. But after the rape I became sickly. I started having fits. It was hard to study. I still liked school. But it was hard to concentrate. At school they thought the fits were due to epilepsy. I was put on drugs. But there was no improvement. Then they said it was a problem with my nerves. Now I’m on other pills (Prozac).

When my father raped me, he must have bewitched me. I thought so because I didn’t understand why I started getting fits. I had a fit once at the halfway house where I now live. I fell on the floor and screamed at the top of my voice. Foam was coming out of my mouth. I was like an animal. The other children all ran out of the house, and left me there. But the staff came, and they took care of me so I wouldn’t hurt myself.

I didn’t go to court when my father’s case started. One day, the halfway house staff took me to SWAGAA to meet my uncle. They thought that was a safe place to see him.

My uncle said my father had died and he wanted me to come home for the funeral. I wanted to go, but my guardians felt it wasn’t safe. No one else from my family has come to see me since except for an old aunt. She was very happy to see me. She said the family was divided over who would take care of me. Some still blame me for my father’s death. But I think my father killed me.”

Español Français

Search:

Email this article