My father is a monster. If all the people, especially the women, he attacked violently in his 63 years on this Earth were to press charges against him, he would be sentenced to about 100 years in jail.
The sad thing is that most of the people he assaulted, including me on several occasions, have not instituted legal proceedings, or they did but dropped the charges either because of family pressure to protect their so-called “good name” or because the law, particularly the police, re-victimised them and they gave up.
Not me. I never, ever, give up.
In 2016/2017, I decided to put my father’s violent and abusive antics to a stop. I instituted legal proceedings against him.
This resulted in a hearing at the conclusion of which the magistrate granted a protection order against my father.
He violated it twice. I had him picked up by the police on each occasion. The protection order was to prevent him from attacking me violently, insulting me in any way, intimidating me or inducing others to attack my dignity or person in any way they could.
Judging from his monstrous toxic behaviour, he will probably violate the protection order again. What am I to do if and when this happens?
Go back to the same inept police, who are more of a force than a service and know little about human rights or how to deal with cases that involve their violation? Decide to fight all the way using every legal avenue available?
The unfortunate reality in this country, is that, from experience, the police and the law protect the perpetrators far more than the victims of any kind of human rights violation, whether it be domestic violence, rape or any other type of abuse. Perpetrators know that the law is not effective.
The police, whose performance leaves much to be desired, do not know how to take proper statements. This means I have had to help cops take down statements that reflect what I am relaying to them.
Moreover, police do not know how to handle domestic matters appropriately - they talk loudly about your issue among themselves at the police station because, to them, it is just another domestic matter, and nothing serious really.
Our constitution and its founding principles are meant to elevate the protection of human rights, which means uphold human dignity as the most important pillar of our nascent democracy.
In other words, the police violate human rights far more than the perpetrators they need to arrest when enough prima facie evidence has been provided. The entire police force (they are yet to become a service worthy of the citizenry’s trust) needs to be re-educated about the nature and importance of human rights in South Africa.
The officers in our courts, who must log the cases on to the roster, are not the most competent, especially on matters related to domestic violence and other human rights violations in general.
Some of them take bribes from perpetrators and try to convince you to drop the case. Others try to superimpose their views of the so-called “African way” of resolving such matters, and attempt to convince you not to allow your domestic matter to be adjudicated by a court of law, but rather by a family meeting.
I do know not of a single meeting across the country that resulted in the majority wanting to press charges against the perpetrator. And here is the likely reason: the perpetrator is also part of the meeting.
Family meetings are not effective in this respect because they simply resolve to sweep hard truths under the carpet. If it were up to the family, many victims of domestic violence and abuse would secure no justice but would have to sacrifice their human dignity at the dubious altar of the family’s “good name”.
Before they hear both sides, magistrates are apparently meant to enquire whether the complainant and respondent wish to find some other peaceful and legal means to resolve the dispute other than the courts. If you say you wish the court to decide on the matter, then they proceed to hear both sides and make a ruling on whether to grant the protection order.
As indicated above, in my case, after all this, the inept police, the overreaching clerks and a dismal magistrate (who expressed his view about my particular case before even hearing the facts from both sides and only thereafter signalled for the hearing to start), the protection order was granted in my favour.
I am not the only person in the country who has had to apply for a protection order or some other legal restraining judgment against his father, mother or guardian. I know for certain that I am among hundreds, if not tens of thousands.
Our country is too violent, our police too poorly educated and cavalier about human rights and our judicial system officers at the lower (magistrate’s courts) often compromised by the allure of big money for bribes.
Too many citizens, particularly in black communities, are afraid to approach the courts or the media for that matter to protect their rights as human beings when they are violated by their parents who might be monsters like my father.
And just like most perpetrators of domestic violence, my father is good at putting on a face in public and pretending to be a gentlemen.
If only we all lived in glass houses, it would be a different story. But the story of rampant domestic violence is the story of South Africa. Most people want domestic violence to be all hush-hush lest we besmirch the “good name” of the family. Again, not me. I am a rebel. Let the s*** hit the fan, I say. My dignity will not be sacrificed at any altar.
When we do not go public with our stories of domestic violence, we protect the perpetrator. The police might re-victimise me without even knowing or caring, for that matter. That is the discrepancy of our criminal justice system.
But, I shall not victimise myself over and over again by remaining silent. Yes, people will be surprised that such a “good” person like my father or another perpetrator is accused of such ghastly behaviour. “No!” They would lament.
But we all know someone who is a perpetrator of domestic violence, terrorises their family yet is the sweetest person outside the house. These monsters are very good to everyone else out there in order to cover up how monstrous they are.
Yet, we have not gone public to expose such people. I say to you, my exposition now of my monstrous father should be the start of something big within our families, and especially African and Afrikaner families, where most victims are encouraged and even pressured to drop the case for the sake of the “good name” of the family. But, what of the good dignity of the victim of domestic violence and abuse?
At the recent Abantu Book Festival, during a session on Khwezi (the since deceased young lady who accused former president Jacob Zuma of raping her in 2005) about the book author Redi Thlabi wrote on Zuma’s accuser, a respectable grey-haired Xhosa gentleman of 60 to 70 years of age, spoke tellingly of how his family tried to hush him up about pressing charges against his brother whom his mentally incapacitated pre-teen daughter had positively identified as having raped her, all to protect the “good name” of the family.
The elderly gentleman miserably explained that his family said they “will not discuss rubbish” when he attempted to gather family members for a meeting to discuss the daughter’s accusation of rape against his brother. The gentleman was visibly distressed. I believed him, and still believe him that his daughter was raped and her uncle has a case to answer to.
When victims speak we must take them seriously, even though they might have a mental disability or they are young. We must not simply dismiss them out of fear that they will drag the “good name” of our family through the mud.
The perpetrators of domestic violence, such as my father, who is a proud woman basher of note, and who repeatedly mauled my late mother and called her a whore long after she was dead, kicked my aunt (his elder sister) in the face, and tried to bash my head to pieces with a club hammer which I had to wrestle from him.
He threw a kettle of boiling water in my face (I had to quickly wash my face with cold water in the kitchen sink otherwise the burns would have been permanent), and has caused rivers of blood to spurt and ooze from the faces and bodies of many women who were in his life.
Most would not dare to approach a court of law or worse, the media, about such ugly monsters in their own families. They are afraid of prying eyes and stoep talk. Again, not me.
I believe sincerely that we must become human rights activists within our own families and households before we seek to practise such activism in the wider society.
In South Africa there is not a single person out there who does not know someone who is a perpetrator of domestic violence or has been a victim of such violence or abuse. It is imperative that we all expose anyone who is a peddler of this toxic masculinity which has rightly seen the fall of many a high roller across the world, including the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Russell Simmons, Charlie Rose, Bill Cosby, and now South Africa Football Association boss Danny Jordaan has been accused by two women of rape or attempted rape.
Throughout the world, more will follow. Of that I am certain. Violent men will not learn their lesson soon enough. The police and the courts will have their work cut out for them in the coming years.
In South Africa the culture of silence is not helping victims obtain justice, because their families are the worst people to go to for solace and advice, for the simple reason that family members want to protect the “good name” of the family rather than expose the perpetrator. Usually, and wrongly, it is the victim of domestic violence who is ostracised when it should be the perpetrator who the family punishes if the law will not secure us well-deserved justice in cases such as mine, where we have been victims of domestic violence and continual verbal abuse at the hands of our own parents and family members.
As victims of domestic violence and abuse, we must come out smoking and free ourselves from the burden of silence that our families have forced us to endure at our peril.
We must dare to bare our souls in public. What we do not need is validation from others, family included. We must validate ourselves. Our truth is enough. I join the chorus of those great women around the world who said “time’s up”.
Finally, my last word is: if you want to protect the “good name” of the family (whatever that means), then help the victim get justice, because the dirty linen of the family is best washed in public.
If you do not want your dirty linen washed in public, do your best to have none at all. Period.
* Sipho J Mabaso is an independent freelance journalist who is sick and tired of families cajoling victims of domestic abuse to be silent.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.