The scourge of E Cape

ALLEGED RAPES: WOMEN LIVE IN FEAR AS POLICE RELUCTANT TO ACT

Mobile station in area was moved to another part in the region after three months.

Sihle* did not report to police for three days an attempt to rape her because she could not afford to get to the nearest police station, 120km away. Hers is one of many alleged rape cases left uninvestigated because of a shortage of police in the Eastern Cape district where she lives.

Sihle, 19, claimed a 17-year-old boy from her village in Uitkyk, Mhlanga village, had got into her house through a window.

She screamed and her mother grabbed the boy.

“I used a spray my father gave us when he went to Johannesburg for work. He cried, calling my mother to forgive him as she was beating him with pots. As I switched on the lights he escaped, but I saw his face,” said Sihle.

Sihle said she called the nearest police station, at Lady Frere. The police promised to send a van, but had not done so.

On the third day, police told her to come to the station.

Residents of Uitkyk rely on one daily bus to Lady Frere, which leaves at 5.30am and comes back in the afternoon. The return fare is close to R100.

Sihle said she borrowed R200 from a loan shark, which she repaid with 50% interest.

“I asked my cousin to accompany me to the police station. I didn’t want to go alone,” said Sihle.

Mhlanga village has more than 600 houses and residents said crime was high due to lack of police. They once had a mobile police station, but it was only there for three months.

Police spokesperson Namhla Mdleleni said the mobile police station had to move around Mhlanga. One mobile station served more than six locations with a population of 10 000 people.

Community leader Bongani Nkuzo said several rape cases did not get reported to police because the survivors did not have the money to get to the police station.

Nkuzo said the mobile police station had started well and police had patrolled the area. “But the number of police decreased from six to three, then to zero. You would go there and find no police,” he said.

Sihle was the second Uitkyk resident to report an attack by the 17-year-old.

Twenty-one-year-old Ayanelisa* claimed she was raped by the boy on April 22.

Police gave her three different reasons why the boy could not be arrested: that he was under age; that there was no evidence that she had been raped because she had opened the door to him; and that she had not sufficiently identified him.

Ayanelisa said that in the early hours of April 22, she had been sleeping with her 15-year-old brother and 13-year-old sister. Her mother worked as a domestic worker in Ugie and only came home at month end.

She said they were woken by a man shouting her name and threatening to break the windows if she did not come out.

“We screamed for help. That boy threatened to rape me and my younger sister. I was scared for her. I only thought of protecting her,” said Ayanelisa.

She said she and her brother

I asked my cousin to accompany me to the police station. I didn’t want to go alone.

agreed that she would go to the door and her brother would run to get help from the neighbours. But when he knocked on the neighbour’s door, they did not hear.

This is a village where many women are living alone, raising their children while their husbands work in big cities. Some households are run by children.

Ayanelisa claimed the boy threatened her with a knife and dragged her to an open field, where he raped her. “I was hoping that my brother would come to rescue me but he did not.”

In the morning she went to the clinic with her neighbour. Police were called and given the doctor’s report, but did not take up the case.

National Prosecuting Authority regional spokesperson Luxolo Tyali confirmed that Ayanelisa’s alleged rapist had not been charged due to insufficient evidence.

* Not their real names – Republished from GroundUp. org.za

Sihle*

Alleged rape victim from Uitkyk, Mhlanga village