Posted on 12/02/2001 9:34:46 PM PST by BansheeBill
'How my five-month-old baby was raped'
December 02 2001 at 09:04PM
By Lynne Altenroxel
Her baby girl's cries of distress on the other side of the locked door told her that something was horribly wrong - but she was powerless to stop her from being raped.
The 24-year-old mother pounded on her locked bedroom door and begged the young man inside the room with her five-month-old baby to let her in.
But the alleged rapist, a close friend, insisted that the key was jammed in the lock.
In desperation the woman - who may not be identified to protect her child's identity - ran to a nearby public telephone to call the police. But she was too late.
'Suspect fled after security guard tipped him off' She returned "three minutes later" to find the door open and her child crying. The baby had been raped and was so severely injured that she later underwent emergency surgery.
The suspect had fled after a security guard in the building allegedly tipped him off about the telephone call to police.
The five-month-old girl is the latest victim of a series of brutal baby rapes.
The first case to rock the nation was that of Baby Tshepang, a nine-month-old girl from Louisvaleweg in the Northern Cape who was gang-raped and horrifically injured last month by six men.
A second case, a week ago, involved the abduction and rape of a sleeping eight-month-old girl from her home in Ravensmead, Cape Town. The badly injured child was left lying in a dark street, where she was found by passers-by.
'He even used to say she would be his daughter-in-law' The latest incident happened around 5pm in Joubert Park, central Johannesburg, where the mother lived.
"I had heard about the baby who was raped in the Northern Cape," she said. "But I never believed such a thing could happen until my child was raped."
On Saturday night, doctors performed a colostomy on the little girl, a procedure where a hole is made in the abdominal wall to provide an artificial anus.
It is unclear if the baby will have to live with a colostomy bag, which is inserted into the hole to collect faeces, for the rest of her life.
She was in a stable condition in Johannesburg Hospital. She was wearing an oxygen mask and being fed by a drip.
Her mother has been unable to sleep since the incident happened and has remained by her side, standing next to the beeping heart monitor alongside the cot.
"It's not nice to cry in front of the patients. But we are shocked," said Sister Emma Nhlapho, who learnt about the rape when she came on duty on Sunday morning.
The mother said she cried so much after the incident, when she realised her baby was bleeding, that she could barely carry her baby. A stranger took pity on her and accompanied her to Johannesburg Hospital, where they were taken by police.
She said the father was "heartbroken. He even dropped the telephone."
Members of the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit on Sunday afternoon arrested a suspect, thought to be 17 years old.
Police had their hands full trying to apprehend the suspect. They patrolled the streets of Joubert Park while the suspect called them from various public telephones before they finally persuaded him to hand himself over.
A second, 24-year-old suspect, whose connection with the case was unclear, was being held for questioning, and police were seeking a third person.
Part of the mother's ordeal is knowing that the suspect was a close friend who used to play with her child.
"He even used to say she would be his daughter-in-law when she grows up."
Two arrested after rape of five-month-old
December 02 2001 at 04:27PM
By Stuart Graham
Two men were arrested on Sunday afternoon for allegedly raping a five-month-old girl in Joubert Park on Saturday night, Johannesburg police said.
Police were currently questioning the two men, aged 17 and 24, Captain Lungelo Dlamini said.
The two were arrested in the same building in which the child was raped.
Dlamini said the child was raped after her 24-year-old mother apparently left her alone inside a room in a building previously used as a cinema.
"When the baby's mother returned, she heard the child crying. On entering the room, a man believed to be her neighbour left the room where the child was crying," he said.
"The mother discovered that the child was bleeding and rushed the baby to the hospital."
The girl was in a stable condition in the Johannesburg Hospital on Sunday afternoon.
The senior matron on call said the girl went to theatre on Saturday night for an examination.
"This was basically to have the bowel bypassed so that the area which was affected does not get infected," the matron said.
The matron was unable to say if the girl had undergone an HIV test.
Provincial police commissioner Perumal Naidoo earlier expressed his disgust at the incident, saying he had instructed the head of the family violence, child protection and sexual offences unit to thoroughly investigate the case.
There is a growing myth in South Africa that Aids can be cured by having intercourse with a baby or a virgin.
On Saturday Northern Cape MEC for safety and liaison, Connie Seoposengwe, visiting the family of a two-and-a-half-year-old baby girl in Port Nolloth, who was raped by a 19-year-old man last week, said the myth was becoming more serious in her province.
Child rapes gained more prominence in the media after a nine-month-old girl from Upington in the Northern Cape was raped by six men more than a month ago.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=13&art_id=qw100730988193B243&set_id=1
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these people deserve the death penalty
if the state won't do it, just let them go... make sure to advertise their release to the public.... the public will do the job.
Seems like there needs to be growing statement of fact that males who do this are castrated or put to death to deter such animal behavior. I think the security guard is criminally responsible in his actions, too.
If those who carried out such atrocities do not die, slowly, in the worst, most horrible way conceivable, then surely there is no God, no justice, no karma, only darkness. Please, Almighty God, kill them in the worst way you know how. What else can I say? It is a sad thing to pray for, but I pray that nonetheless.
While I sympathize with your sentiment, your plan has one flaw. In order to carry it out one would have to expose himself to lots of infectious fluids.
I guess it works in the sense that if you're hanging from the end of a rope you definitely having nothing to fear from AIDS but suicide seems simpler.
The South African blacks, have been told, by the COMMUNIST ANC, President Mbeki, and also during Mandela's tenure, that " The whitemans' medicine will NOT cure AIDS." The powers that be, will NOT permit FREE , American medicines to be brought into South Africa !
The blacks may now have the vote, but their lives WERE better under Apartheid ; which was on its way out, when the Western LIBERALS and the UN interferred.
Hust an FYI ... the MAJORITY of crimes ( ALL types of crimes ) are not only NOT reported, in S.A., but very few people are jailed because of committing a crime, now. It was NOT always like that !
This tops it all.
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