By: Amber Court
Cape Town - Embarrased about being raped and abused – this was how residents at the Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children described their experiences.
They shared their accounts as the centre’s umbrella partner National Shelter Movement of SA (NSM) prepared to launch a new, free gender-based violence 24-hour helpline this week.
The NSM will launch the helpline at an event in Newlands on Tuesday.
Located in Manenberg, the Saartjie Baartman Centre provides a safe place for 36 women and 38 children.
A victim of abuse, Kelly Andrews (not her real name), along with her baby, has been at the shelter since September.
The Athlone resident feared for her three children’s safety after she was beaten in front of them.
“I don’t think that they will be able to cope with it, because it does affect them.
“They might think that it would be okay for a man to abuse a woman,” she said. She added that her other two children were in foster care with her brother.
“It was domestic violence that caused my two children to be put into foster care the first time.
“I have been struggling for almost a year to get them back,” she said.
Andrews said when her baby was born, she faced emotional abuse and she feared it would turn into physical abuse at the hands of her boyfriend.
“I got out before she got put in the middle and taken away.
“He would threaten me saying if I spoke to someone then I would be beaten. “I couldn’t see my family,” she said. She said the centre helped her get away from her abuser.
“This is not easy. It is embarrassing, because I was a strong woman. I never allowed any of those types of things to happen to me. Now I feel like I can speak to people and be around people,” she said.
Another victim, Sadie Arendse (not her real name), is a mother of two girls.
“Six months ago I was pregnant. I had an off (bad) relationship for three years with my boyfriend,” she said.
Because of her drug use and unstable living environment, she ended up in bad company. She said before she came to the safe haven, she was gang-raped.
“The trauma was so bad that I had to go to the police station as I was bleeding heavily. Because I knew the one guy I chose not to make a case. I was referred to a safe house,” she said.
Saartjie Baartman Centre director and NSM committee member Bernadine Bachar said: “The NSM will launch its own 24-hour toll-free shelter helpline; the first helpline dedicated only to issues of domestic and intimate partner violence – in an effort to get more women to the safety of shelters, away from their abuser.”
Weekend Argus