Though she doesn't walk around with"Right Of Access Reserved" sign, 36 year-old Nozuko had always thought she held 100% ownership to her precious body. Though she didn't have a house or vehicle to her name, she was convinced she was a sole owner to her body until one fateful Friday evening when she was accosted by two armed men while walking home after 10 hours of manual labour from the factory where she works. One of the men pointed her with a gun and dragged her into the back seat of the double-cab bakkie.The bakkie sped off too quickly for anyone to hear her cry for help. She was driven 15km outside the city and in her plea fro mercy, Nozuko offered the abductors R400 cash and a smart-phone she had in her purse. The two men were not ready to bargain for anything- it was her body they wanted.
For the first time in 36 years strangers had taken ownership of Nozuko's body. She suffered bruises to her face, neck, back and wrists while desperately trying to fight off the men who ultimately over-powered her. The thought of imminent death crossed her mind and the mother of two immediately gave up the fight. Her body suddenly became an open buffet for two strangers who laid her bare in the back seat of a double-cab bakkie. They each took three turns raping her while drinking a thick dark liquid at intervals.
After the three hour ordeal, the men drove away leaving Nozuko in the veld with her body bruised, bleeding and violated. She gathered strength to drag her battered body to the high-way and started hitch-hiking. A woman driver noticed a woman with torn clothes and gave her a lift. She drove Nozuko to the nearest police station where she gave account of the violence her body went through.
After giving account of the violence meted out to her, her body was again taken over by another batch of strangers in blue uniform. Nozuko's body had suddenly become a crime scene. Five counts of crime had been committed on her body namely Pointing Of Firearm, Kidnapping, Assault GBH, Indecent Assault and Rape. A police docket was opened and case number issued for body.
Nozuko had to take off her clothes for a police photographer to take pictures of her bruised body. She wasn't allowed to wipe blood stains off her body to avoid tampering with evidence. She had to open her legs to a strange medical practitioner wearing latex gloves. The medical practitioner inserted fingers in her vagina feeling for foreign particles and took semen samples for laboratory tests. A male investigating officer told Nozuko to avail her body for further investigation and evidence gathering should a need arise.
As if the trauma wasn't already unbearable, another stranger prescribed a 28 days post-exposure prophylaxis treatment to prevent possible HIV infection. She was told which disinfectant liquid to apply to her body. The precious body Nozuko used to share intimately with her husband Vusi had become a public entity.
When the matter finally went to court, Nozuko's body became a subject of public discourse. Leading media outlets and social media reported about the level of violence she endured. Her body was a matter of judicial rigmarole between the prosecution and defense. Legal-Aid appointed an attorney with Nozuko's tax money to represent the same rapists who had devoured her body.
Nozuko is a devoted Christian who grew up considering her body as a temple of God. The married wife found herself at religious cross-roads. She was no longer sure if her body remained God's temple or had been expropriated by the devil. In a court-room chock-a-block with strangers, a male prosecutor flaunted pictures of Nozuko's battered body as exhibit 1,2 &3. The defense attorney tried to establish if Nozuko wasn't a willing participant in the sex-orgy with men she had never met before.
The attorney paid with her tax money enquired if she had swallowed semen of the 2nd accused who had ejaculated into her mouth. At this stage Nozuko went through flashbacks of that fateful Friday night. She begrudgingly told the court how her body went into a state of shock after she was subjected to six rounds of dry sex in three hours - something she had never experienced in her nine years of marriage. Her body went numb when she locked eyes with her husband sitting in the front row of public gallery. Then the sound of her agonizing scream suddenly reverberated throughout the courtroom.
To Nozuko, it's immaterial if the rapists are sentenced to 18 years or not. What matters is that she will continue to feed these two perverts with her tax money for the duration of their incarceration at Leeuwkop prison.They will go through a series of rehabilitation programmes and be eligible for parole after faking good behaviour in prison. For this law abiding and tax-paying citizen - panic has become a recurring theme of her life whenever she sees two men walking or driving together.
Nozuko's ordeal begs a cocktail of questions: what recourse will her body have after suffering such a harrowing violence? Will her body get "parole" from stigma and public humiliation? Will the tax man give Nozuko a tax rebate to compensate her injuries sustained? While jurists argue about what is in the best interest of justice, do they even bother asking what is in the best interest of her body? While rapists are sentenced to 18 years each, will Nozuko's lingering agony also vanish after 18 years? Will 18 years sentence make her forget the nausea she felt when a stranger ejaculated into her mouth?
From where Nozuko stands - there can never be a befitting justice for the violence her body went through. No custodial sentence will restore her bedroom intimacy with her husband Vusi. No degree of trauma counselling will stop those morning gossips at Bree taxi rank whenever people see her. Nozuko is the reason women should think twice before crying rape just to settle a score or extort money from men. Rape is the worst form of violence against a woman's body - it's a subliminal life sentence against a woman's body.
No woman derives masochistic delight from rape.It's a worst form of violence which no woman can wear as a badge of honour. If men can't pamper women's bodies - at least let them not hurt them.For many Nozuko's out there, the best way to protect women from the ordeal of rape, is for men to zip up and not rape at all. #TheTotalShutdown
