Cape Town - The mother of a five-year-old girl says her daughter could have been just another child murder statistic in the Western Cape had it not been for the intervention of two men who stopped the attack.
The little girl has lived to tell the tale after her attacker, believed to be a family member, choked and raped her, stuffed her mouth full of flowers to muffle her screams and then tried to throw her down a drain.
The male relative, 30, has since been arrested and charged with sexual assault at the Mitchells Plain Magistrates’ Court where he was granted R500 bail.
The 27-year-old mom from Mitchells Plain says in February, her daughter, who was four at the time, started talking about the sick attacks on her.
She says her daughter was examined by social workers for five weeks and the information handed over to the female detective.
She is now questioning why the man is not being charged with rape, assault and attempted murder, instead of just sexual assault.
“The detective said she didn’t need to take another statement as they would add it onto the report,” the mom says.
She says their ordeal began in January when the relative begged her and her husband for a place to stay after he was chased away by family in Johannesburg.
She says she only met the relative once, three years ago, “and I never saw him again until he contacted us in January”.
It was only later that they found out that he was a gangster and drug addict.
“If I had known of this, I would never allowed him into my home,” says the mom.
She says he gained their trust by helping around the house and offering to take her daughter to creché.
One day in February, she was shocked at what came out of her daughter’s mouth: “When they came back from creché that day, he said ‘tell your mommy what you learnt today’.”
“She said ‘mommy, we learnt that it is only girls who get periods and have blood, not boys and that there is a moffie who has a penis that is too small and he cannot have sex’.”
She immediately contacted the creché principal who discovered that this “lesson” was in fact taught to the child by her relative.
“When I asked the child, she said the uncle told her,” says the principal.
“She said when they walked from creché, he pushed her to the ground and choked her and placed flowers into her mouth so she could not scream and that he touched her private parts,” says the mother.
She alerted police and a doctor confirmed the little girl had been raped.
“My child told the social workers that one day he took her to the bush and that she was bleeding and that he put a green snake (penis) into her koekie and that he used dirty toilet paper to clean the blood, saying it’s her period.
“He then took her to a drain and used one of my husband’s tools, a chisel, and opened it up.
“She said he wanted to put her inside and that she was crying and that he was going to kill her, but that two men walked past and he said he was joking.
“My child also speaks of another man in the bush, who was smoking drugs with my relative, who, hurt her.
“The relative threatened her that he would kill me and the baby if she told anyone.”
The mother claims none of these details are mentioned in the case docket, and is furious.
“There is also a selfie of him and my daughter where he is kissing her with the tongue,” she says.
“If they don’t get their act together, I will embarrass SAPS by covering her face and letting my daughter tell her story on YouTube.”
Police spokesman Captain FC van Wyk has confirmed a charge of sexual assault is being investigated and says the suspect is back in court on 5 July.