Girl offered R10 after gang-rape

Moloko Moloto

A 15-year-old girl who was raped by six youths in a village near Tzaneen, Limpopo, for nine hours. Photo: Moloko Moloto

A Limpopo teenager was allegedly abducted and held for nine hours by a gang of six youths – who raped her, then offered her a R10 note.

But Xirilo (not her real name) turned down the offer and instead headed straight to the Letsitele satellite police station to report the attack.

Six youths were arrested and charged with rape. Four of them are 17 years old, one is 16 and the other is 15.

The Grade 10 pupil was abducted on Saturday night.

Xirilo, 15, told The Star on Monday from her home in a village near Tzaneen that she and two relatives had been walking to a taxi rank in the neighbouring Nwajaheni village at about 7pm when four youths armed with knives held them up.

The attackers ordered her relatives, both girls, to flee, then abducted her.

“They slapped me in the face and threatened to stab me when I refused to go with them,” said Xirilo, whose face still showed bruises two days later.

The four attackers dragged her to a house, believed to belong to one of the gang’s relatives who lives in Gauteng, where she was raped.

“Along the way two of them went to fetch another two friends, and later returned to join the two, who proceeded with me to the house,” the girl said in a timid voice.

All six raped her for nine hours.

She was released the following day around 4pm and offered R10.

“When I refused to take their R10 offer, they just laughed at me and let me go,” said Xirilo.

Neighbours who stay near the house where she was raped told The Star that they did not notice anything until the police visited the house later.

“The whole episode is hurting me,” said Xirilo as she tried to hold back the tears.

Her mother was devastated by the rape of her daughter.

“It pains me so much, it’s very painful,” said the mother.

She said Xirilo had been taken to hospital for treatment and was also seen by a psychologist.

Limpopo police spokesman Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said the first that police heard of the attack was when the girl arrived at the police station on Sunday accompanied by a community member, who had found her crying in the road.

Mulaudzi said her relatives had not reported the attack and her abduction.

Mulaudzi added that the suspects were seen drinking alcohol at a nearby tavern earlier that day.

“The case has necessitated a review by the police and the Liquor Board to permanently close the business for violating the Liquor Act by allegedly selling liquor to minors,” he said.

The suspects were due to appear in the Letsitele Magistrate’s Court on Monday.

Last month, The Star revealed that two five-year-old girls had been raped on their way from school at Mmamtsha village outside Polokwane.

Another five-year-old girl, who is in Grade R with the two other girls, managed to escape.

A 26-year-old man has since been arrested.

It also emerged that one of the two five-year-olds had been raped twice previously.

First she was raped in 2010, when she was only three years old.

A 30-year-old suspect in that attack was released in May this year after the case was provisionally withdrawn because DNA test results and the social worker’s report were still pending, nearly two years after the assault.

She was raped for the second time in May, and a 27-year-old man was arrested over this incident.

That means by the age of just five, the girl had been raped by three different men from the same village.

Her mother said a relative of one of the suspects had called the girl a “slut”, but the suspect’s sister denied saying this.

moloko.moloto@inl.co.za

The Star