Nineteen year old Shuvai was sixteen years old when she crossed into South Africa via illegal border jumping.
She walked 80 kilometers and nearly fainted of hunger before being gang raped by seven men. She is now HIV positive and has perennial vaginal sores.
When her mother let her pursue the South Africa dream little did she know that two years later her daughter will not want to talk to a man, that she will contemplate suicide on a daily basis, that her dream of completing her education and becoming a nurse was to be.
Today, a once robust sixteen year old, is now a miserable nineteen year old HIV positive woman thanks to Robert Mugabes destruction of the education system. It is Mugabes policies that induced a galloping inflation rate and a worthless domestic currency that pushed millions including children out of their motherland.
We got to the border line and the men (who assist people cross illegally into South Africa) said give us money. We gave them the money that we had. We thought it was genuine help. The time was around eight at night then they said come this way because there were soldiers at the other side. We didnt expect anything to happen to us. We told each other since we are going to cross into South Africa lets just do anything. It was a thick bush… around past ten we slept under the bushes then about seven men appeared from nowhere and demanded money. We said no we dont have money its been taken already. They said to the boys if you dont have money, no problem we will take the girls and have sex with them so that we can help you cross. The boys were too young to defend us. It was past ten and then they took me and my friend and they gang raped us me and my friend, narrated Shuvai.
When I asked her what happened next I was tested for HIV the following June and I tested positive for the HIV virus.
If it wasnt Mugabe…this young girl would not have met her fate. To me this is how Mugabe killed a young dream.
Post published in: News