Kutlwano Olifant
A 17-year-old Snake Park girl who bit off the lower lip of the man who raped her will not let the incident hold her back from a bright future.
“I want to be a doctor. I won’t allow this rape incident to be a barrier from helping other people,” said the girl, who is recovering from her injuries at her grandmother’s house.
Her grandmother, who is known to The Star but cannot be named to protect the identity of the girl, said she was happy the suspect had been arrested.
“I want him to learn a lesson and rot in prison. My granddaughter was lucky to have survived. Maybe another person wouldn’t have.”
The girl said the suspect was a man she had known from the neighbourhood. “I was never close to him, he was just a person I knew. A simple ‘hello’ was our conversation every time we met in the street.”
She met the suspect on Wednesday afternoon when she joined a group of friends heading to a nearby shop.
“We decided to go get drinks together with the suspect. I stood outside the shop as my friend went inside to get drinks. The man decided to wait with me, but after a few minutes I told him I was leaving for home as it was late. He said we could walk together,” she said.
The teen said that while they were walking, the man forcefully grabbed her and dragged her into the yard where he was a tenant.
“I screamed and asked what was he doing. He continued to push me inside his shack. I shouted ‘you are going to rape me’ and banged the door,” the teen said.
Her assailant, she said, hit her in the face and then told her to undress. When she refused, he stripped her of her clothes.
“He raped me while I continuously screamed,” said the girl.
When he tried to kiss her, she bit off his lower lip.
“He then stabbed me below my ear. I was weak, bleeding so much that I fell on the floor.
“Maybe he thought I was dead when he left the shack,” she explained.
Two other tenants found her and, recognising who she was, went and called her grandparents.
The teen was later taken to Leratong Hospital, near Krugersdorp, where she received counselling and medical attention.
The suspect was arrested on Thursday as he disembarked from a taxi.
Police spokesman Kay Makhubela said the 31-year-old man, from Rustenburg, had, after the alleged rape, gone straight to the Dobsonville police station to report a case of assault.
The man could barely talk, according to Makhubela. The police also took him to Leratong Hospital.