Innocence Lost

"The chain on the door is to keep the rogues out. Before I put it there, they would break in to steal from us and rape us."

Janet, a thirty two year-old mother, shared this with me matter-of-factly, accepting rape as an inevitable occurrence in the Zulu shanty town we were visiting, an area that police rarely go into. The way in which the information was conveyed was as impacting to me as the information itself. Janet wasn’t crying and crumbling over the fact she has been raped repeatedly. She simply communicated it much like we would communicate going out to the mailbox to pick up our junk solicitations and bills. Just another fact of life, another routine incident.

The rogues are youth and men, often addicted to drugs, who break into the shacks, robbing victims to feed their habits or lust. To be "real men" the witch doctors tell them they must have sex every other day. To get a high, they need funds. Both can be found in poorly-protected tin shanties occupied by widows and orphans. "If they get in, we offer ourselves so that our children aren’t raped," Janet further explained.

There is no surprise that the area we were in was the AIDS and drugs capital of South Africa. Such things go hand in hand. When tied to a tradition of outright male dominance and the cultural requirement for frequent sex, you’re left with a boiling cauldron of abuse and disease. Tin shanties are simply cages that hold prey, incubators that hold diseased victims.

Janet used to have a chair sitting on the flattened dry mud she calls her front porch. After she put the chains on the rusty front door, she discovered that she had to move the chair inside also. The rogues would use it to get up onto her roof, pry back the tin sheets and drop in through the ceiling to rape her. I heard the sounds in my head: the sound of men lumbering up the side of the shack, the sound of heavy footsteps on the tin surface overhead, the sound of crowbars dragging across the thin corrugated barrier, the sound of metal against metal and nails popping, the sound of creaking sheets bending against the will of determined predators. The sound of screaming.

Janet is HIV positive, no doubt infected by one of her attackers or perhaps the husband that left her for another woman. Her 8ft. by 8ft. shack has two decorations – a teddy bear stuffed high into a corner, and the memorial program for her mother’s funeral held by a clothes peg to a metal edge of the shanty siding. A teddy bear and a funeral program. Innocence and loss. Innocence lost.

Today is World AIDS Day. According to an AP report this morning, "South Africa has an estimated 5.5 million people living with the HIV virus — the highest total of any country in the world and more than one-sixth of the global total. About 1,000 South Africans die each day of the disease and complications like tuberculosis. Even more become infected because prevention messages haven't worked."

Please remember the infected and affected world today. Mothers like Janet.

Comments

[B.J. Murrey]

Bro this is my favorite blog of yours. It's sad though and sickening too.. but it reminds me appropriately what is real, and what to do from here. Thanks for posting.

[Jenna Howard]

wow, this make me sick. the fear that welled in my tummy as you describe how the men would go through the top. it makes you appreciate even more when you safe "i have a roof over my head". but to them a roof is just another way to get in. this blog shows your heart. you have many others that show your passion but this one was different. I felt like i was there...and hated it and hurt for Janet...

[Billy Ray]

I think this story puts all of our work in perspective... in the midst of all of our well thought out strategies and well intentioned efforts there are still occurrances like these happening all over the world every day... Lord brigde our efforts with your power, our prayers with your compassion, and our hearts with your broken heart.

[Tim Kurek]

Your blog made me tear up man! I wonder, I am about to become heavily involved in the human trafficking cause and I wonder if you have had any experience with it...?

We should link up our blogs!

http://TheEvolutionofGod.wordpress.com

tim kurek

[Rachael S.]

Thank you for the helpful information. I bookmarked your site, and I hope you keep up the good work on making your blog a success!