‘He destroyed my life...’
She’s a Mpala; her maiden name. Diketso was married but won’t even utter “that” Zulu’s name – because he destroyed her life.
“Utterly,” she says, as tears well up, even after 30 years. She went from a packer in a plastic factory to a domestic; from slender legs in high heels to a cripple with a deformed foot.
All because he thought she was cheating and stabbed her in the spine with a screwdriver. Not once, three times as she tried to run away.
“I thank God three men chased him away because he would’ve killed me.”
It cost her three months in Baragwanath Hospital, and her job.
“I had to learn to walk again. Intense physio... But I still fall over far too easily.”
She remembers the black eyes, broken ribs; how she eventually didn’t have to hide the abuse to her colleagues.
“Everybody knew, but nobody said a word.
“When I was stabbed, no one asked. I had no visitors in hospital – my boss just let me know he couldn’t wait three months…”
There were no consequences for her husband. “I couldn’t lay a charge, I was too scared.”
But she never saw him again. “He asked for me on his deathbed 10 years ago. I didn’t go…”
It’s the lack of respect she remembers vividly. “I was there to cook and clean. He asks, I give, or feel it.
“The young girls think it’s a new problem. It’s not. Black men have no respect for women. That needs to change.
“I just wish I had the courage to leave him the first time he beat me up. I didn’t – and he destroyed me…”
She never allowed a man back in her life. “I’m 60 and too old for men now – and I don’t want one. Ever…”
The young girls think it’s a new problem. It’s not. Black men have no respect for women. That needs to change.