The protesters were furious. They pulled at the gate of the school where the mother said her 7-year-old daughter had been raped. They demanded that the school was closed and threatened to burn it off.
Protesters in the small town of Matatile, South Africa known to be furious since videos from the mother, Thhandekile Mtshizana, were placed online a few months ago by describing her daughter that she was being attacked at Bergview College.
The clips attracted millions of views and have changed the girl’s case online for the pseudonym CWECwe, in the latest flash point in the long struggle of South Africa against sexual violence, which challenges a culture of shame and silence. In rural communities such as Matatile, the case of CWECwe has hit a nerve.
“This time we say it cannot be common as usual,” says Thapelo Monareng, a store employee who took a free time to attend the protest in matatile. “We are here to say that enough is enough.”
The police have said that the investigation is underway and is extremely sensitive. Tests did not find foreign DNA on the body or clothing of the girl, according to a presentation that the police gave to parliament in April. The results of a doctor’s original examination were not decisive, the police said, adding that they have no suspects.
According to an average of 118 rape, every day in South Africa is reported police statistics For the most recent available year. One in three South African women older than 18 years – or more than seven million – has been a victim of physical violence at some point in their lives, Statistics. Women’s rights activists have long criticized what they see as a lukewarm response from the government. Between 2018 and 2023, more than 61,740 Rape cases and 5,523 Cases of sexual violence were closed without being resolved.
“We come from an era in which the punishment for beating a girl and sleeping with her with her with violence was a goat and a few eyelashes at the court of the head,” said Thagang Kuali, a traditional leader in matatile. Although those days have now largely disappeared, Mr. Kuali said, he hoped that the Cwecwe case “would shift the needle in how men think.”
“I saw men marching against rape for the first time in this Cwecwe issue,” he said.
Bergview officials did not respond to requests for comments. A lawyer for the director of the school said That based on the timing of the injuries of CWECwe, he believed that she had been attacked in the community, not at school.
Mrs. Mtshizana said she was not worried about the lack of clarity of the investigation. “I will get justice somehow,” she added.
The demonstrations culminated in March with a Mars to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office to deliver a petition that demands that he declares sexual violence to a national disaster in South Africa.
The CWECwe case “must become a catalyst for systemic change – not only a different flashes of attention that fades into the next tragedy,” said Sabrina Walter, the founder of Women for Change, the organization that has drawn up the petition.
Explaining a national disaster would enable the government to quickly finance efforts to tackle gender -based violence, said Mrs. Walter. And it would also enable better cooperation between government agencies, from law enforcement to health and social services.
Mrs. Mtshizana says she reported her daughter’s attack to the police as soon as her daughter told her that it happened in October, but that the story only received attention in March, when she placed it on Tiktok after months of waiting for the police to make an arrest.
She says her daughter told her that a caregiver at the school had asked her to sweep a classroom. The girl remembered that while she was sweeping, she smelled a bit like burning tires and then fell asleep, said Mrs. Mtshizana. Her daughter woke up with injuries, but did not know what had happened.
Mrs. Mtshizana, who is a police officer at a separate station, said that after her daughter came home from school with abdominal pains and blood stains on her Baanbroek, she took her to a doctor, who examined her and then broke the horrible news she had been raped.
“I was crying,” said Mrs. Mtshizana Video Shared on social media. “I cried because I am also a victim of rape. I know what it feels like.”
Mrs. Mtshizana said she had decided to become public because she was of the opinion that the police investigation dragged and that it had become difficult to get updates. Her mind drove to how she felt when she was raped at 8 pm, she said, and the betrayal she felt through the legal system in the aftermath.
“I still live with those scars,” she said. “I want otherwise for my daughter.”
Before the attack, Mrs. Mtshizana said, her daughter was a top performance in her first class. She loved to be a big sister. Now her daughter is reserved and sketches broken hearts, she said.
“All I can do is fight for her.”
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