Mom noticed girl had infection
Nine-year-old girl told to keep quiet
A nine-year-old girl has told the South Gauteng High Court sitting in Palmridge, in Johannesburg, how a school patroller pushed her out of a guard house into the cold after he had sexually abused her. The grade 3 pupil at A.B. Xuma Primary School in Soweto said the sexual abuse left her with a bladder infection.
The girl testified in a trial against Johannes Molefe who stands accused of two counts of rape and 11 counts of sexual assault. Molefe allegedly abused the young girls last year. The girl said Molefe violated her on a cold winter morning before school.
She said she had been sitting outside of the guard house with her friend chatting. She said the friend went to the toilet and she went inside the guard house because there was a heater inside. “Then Mkhulu entered the room, there was no one else there. Mkhulu sat next to me and I was wearing a school dress. He moved my panty and touched me with his finger on my vagina,” she said.
The girl said Molefe moved her panty to the side.
“I said Mkhulu please stop and he refused to stop. After that he pushed me outside, I then left,” she said.
The girl said she later told the school principal what Molefe did but she was told to keep quiet about it.
She said this was after teachers asked that children who were abused by Molefe should come forward. “The principal called my mother and told her that I said I had an infection but did not tell my mother that I said Mkhulu touched me. The principal said I must keep quiet because the school will be closed down and I will no longer go to school,” she said. The girl said she did not tell anyone at home fearing her mother would shout at her. The girl’s mother said she realised that her daughter had an irritation on her vagina and took her to clinic. She said her daughter was put on antibiotic treatment for three months before she broke her silence. “The nurses asked if anything happened to her and she said ‘no’. Only to find out later that she confessed to teachers that ‘Mkhulu’ [Molefe] inserted a finger in her vagina,” she said. Another 13-year-old girl testified that Molefe once touched her breast and had told her not to hold down her skirt because he wanted to see how big her thighs were.