Through my eyes

Date: 2014-06-27

Last week's phone call from an acquaintance set my head racing. It's about a local shop attendant, Jabu Ngwenye who was allegedly strangled to death by the father of her baby who was later released on a R1000 bail.

South Africa has a highest statistics of women abuse and I am so saddened that life is such a cheap commodity here. I was introduced to this quite early in life and it has left a huge dent on my conscience.

My first 'bestie' when I arrived in SA was a pretty redhead called Charmaine van Niekerk, we were both thirteen years old and finishing primary school when one day out of the blue Charmaine told me that her father was sexually abusing her.

I remember looking at my new friend with a regard of disbelief. Up until that moment in my young mind fathers never abused children, not like that. It was a shock. That evening I approached my mother and told her what Charmaine has told me. Sitting on the bathroom floor in tears, my mother tried to calm me down.

She did not believe Charmaine, she had never come across this kind of abuse either but she did promise to investigate and help Charmaine in any way she couldwell, couple of days later Charmaine vanished, ran away from home, never to be seen again.

Until one day six years later, I was walking home from work past the Three Sisters Café in Hilbrow, when I saw a woman banging on a taxi window. I found it a bit crazy and carried on walking, the next moment a woman dressed in what looked like a wedding veil and a white dress ran up to me and started hugging me.

"Don't you remember me? Its me Charmaine."

Well to be honest I did not recognise her. Her hair was peroxide white, brittle and shaggy. Her teeth were rotten and she looked like she came out of a Frankenstein movie, "The Bride of Frankenstein."

It so happened that we lived a block away from each other and Charmaine invited me home to her bachelor flat to show me how talented she was.

Charmaine was no longer called Charmaine, she was now Bonnie Tyler and she was an aspiring musician.

In her flat she played me a few of Bonnie Tyler tracks, while telling me her life story. She ran away from home because from whenever she can remember both her father and her brother were sexually abusing her, she said the last straw came when her mother started demanding sexual favours.

As Charmaine - Bonnie - recalls these tales that made my eyes tear and mouth dry up, the intercom rang out in her apartment. She looked at me in total fear and said, "Oh shit, its Frank, you need to hide. I promise I won't be long, but you must not make a sound, Frank is a psycho and he will hurt you if he finds you here."

She hid me in a closet with a railed curtain and made me sit there while she 'serviced' Frank. I could see the silhouette of a big fat Mediterranean brut and everything was just one big repulsive nightmare that lasted almost three hours.

I was in tears when he finally left. Bonnie assured me that Frank was her main client and that she stopped 'hooking' on street corners long time ago and that the music was going to get her out of the prostitution all together.

I stayed over with her that night while she told me about her first years in Joubert Park as a teen prostitutesoon a heroine addict and now Frank's whore. I sat on her girlie bed that night holding her tight like we use to do when we were 'besties', it is very hard to explain my utter shock at her revelations, however what is harder are her parting words, she said.

"The abuse I suffered at the hands of strangers is nothing compared to the harm my family caused me. This is heaven compared to my life at home."

I never saw Bonnie again, never went back to her apartment and soon I moved out of the area not looking back. I often wonder what she is doing and whether Frank really was her ticket out of the misery.

I cannot fathom the life she endured as a child at the hands of her family, the very people who were supposed to help her and the lack of support she received when she was finally brave enough to tell strangers of her plight.

If you are a victim of abuse, don't suffer alone call the 24-hour toll-freehelpline: 0800 055 555 and let professionals help you.

Springclean

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Nissan T5ekton

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