A 70-year-old grandmother says she was raped by a known sex offender on Friday 16 July at her home in Vukani.
A 70-year-old grandmother says she was raped by a known sex offender on Friday 16 July at her home in Vukani.
uMakhulu* said she was resting on her bed just before 8pm when she heard her old wooden door being kicked in.
The offender stormed through into her bedroom, held her down and raped her. “He smelled of alcohol,” she said, reliving the horror.
The soft-spoken grandmother said she then grabbed him by his scrotum and beat him with a stick she keeps beside her bed.
She screamed for help and concerned neighbours rushed to her assistance, but it was too late. The perpetrator had jumped over the barbed wire fence surrounding her home and fled the scene.
Neighbours alerted police and an ambulance soon escorted uMakhulu to Settler’s Hospital where she was treated and released on the same night.
She spent the next few nights with her daughter in Joza. When Grocott’s Mail contacted the police, they failed provide any information regarding the case.
Meanwhile, uMakhulu says that on Saturday, police drove her to the home of the offender where she positively identified the alleged perpetrator.
“I pointed at him and he just looked down and said nothing,” she said. “I don’t want him to come back here, I want him to stay in jail,” she added.
She describes the offender as a well known troublemaker in the area who frequently passed by her home. “I heard he is mentally unstable,” she said, adding that he had previously raped another elderly woman and strangled her to death afterwards.
The widowed uMakhulu has been living alone in her RDP home for six years. There are no burglar bars on her doors or windows and her door frame clings to the house by loose wires.
“Crime here is rife, we often go to church and they steal our things,” she explained. Her modestly furnished home is neat, with pictures of Jesus lining the walls.
Living off her pension allowance, she spends her days tending to the spinach, onions and beans she grows in her garden although water is scarce.
“It’s very common in the township, men raping woman both young and old,” explained uMakhulu. “I don’t understand why they are doing this, but it is dirty and evil,” she said.
“They drink alcohol with their girlfriends in the shebeen, why do they rape us afterwards?” But uMakhulu is not afraid: “He will never touch me again, if he returns my neighbours will sort him out.
The problem is these people get arrested and are then released,” she said. At the time of going to press, the police were still unavailable for comment.
*This name has been changed to protect the identity of the interviewee.
