Swazi Observer

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MAN GRABS GIRL (5) FROM MOTHER, RAPES HER

By Starsky Mkhonta | 2018-05-24

While senators are engaged in petty politics with regards the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Bill debate, young girls and women continue to be brutally violated physically and sexually.

The Bill aims to protect women from sexual and physical abuse but disturbingly, it has stalled in senate after it was approved by the House of Assembly. Semantics appear to be the delaying factor of the Bill being passed.

As the legislators run in circles, a life of a young girl aged five will never be the same after she was grabbed from her mother before being dragged into a bush by a monster that sexually violated her.

The petrifying incident happened on Monday around Mahlalini, an area in the outskirts of Nhlangano.

The toddler was accompanying her mother to a neighbour’s homestead when the man emerged from a thicket.

He grabbed the child and disappeared with her in the thicket where he sexually violated her.

Information gathered is that it was around 4pm when the mother took a walk to a neighbour’s home with her five-year-old daughter. The young girl walked a couple of steps ahead of her mother who was carrying another child.

Community members suspect that the heartless man could be one of the gangs that abuse drugs, in particular dagga.

cellphone

According to the girl’s mother who cannot be mentioned to protect the violated child, they were going to fetch a cellphone from the neighbour’s homestead they had taken for charging.

“We were going to fetch a cellphone from the neighgbour’s homestead where we always take it for charging.

“It is not far away from our home but because the pathway is surrounded by shrubs and bushy vegetation, it’s not easy to see the one you are following and in the case of my daughter, she walked in the front and just vanished from my eyes. At first I just thought she had proceeded straight to the homestead without assuming anything strange could have befallen her,’’ she narrated.

The saddened mother said in that maze she heard her daughter scream but could not locate where the screams came from.

She said her attempts to call out her daughter’s name did not work as there was no response.

She said for a moment she lost her mind and while she contemplated her next move, a stranger emerged from the thicket with her teary daughter in tow.

“There she was with the stranger emerging from the bush. I did not hesitate as I personally confronted the man and just when I got hold of him, he slipped and was swallowed by the bush again,’’ she said.

The mother said her shaken daughter bore all the signs of a person who had been sexually violated.

She quickly checked on her and her fears were confirmed, her daughter had been raped.

The terrified mother raised an alarm that community members responded to promptly and combed the forest in search of the monster with the hope that he was still in the vicinity.

caught

Indeed, he was spotted and just when the residents thought they had caught him, he slipped again leaving his bewildered captors holding his stinky jacket.

The mother said police were alerted but the excuse they gave was that there was no vehicle at the police station as they were all assigned to the ongoing elections registration process.

She said it was then that an ambulance from 977 arrived and the child was rushed to hospital.

“Doctors examined her and found that indeed there was penetration but it was not that deep.

“She was given medication that has to do with infection and pain. I am still terrified and scared for my daughter’s safety even now. It’s a trauma that would haunt her for a long time as she was also threatened with death when she screamed for help,’’ said the mother.

Police mouthpiece Superintendent Khulani Mamba confirmed the incident and further stated that there has been no arrest as the suspect managed to escape when means were made to apprehend him.

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