Thandi*, a young and unemployed single mother, put her two children in foster care this week, finally acknowledging that she could no longer take care of them.

In November, her seven-year-old daughter, Zandile*, was raped and her throat was slit by Thandi's abusive former boyfriend.

Her five-year-old son, Thabo*, saw the attack. He was sitting next to his sister as she struggled to breathe when their mother returned home that Sunday night, November 20.

Zandile has spent the past two-and-a-half months recuperating at Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto, including a week in the intensive care unit.

"I feel so guilty," whispered Thandi, tears running down each cheek. "Every time I see her, I feel so guilty that I was not there."

Thandi had lived with the man in Katlehong, but left him in February last year because he was "so abusive" to her and her children, especially when he was drunk.

Abandoned by her own mother as a toddler, after she was badly burnt in a shack fire, Thandi did not want to abandon her own children.

But the 28-year-old, who has extensive facial scarring, earns a hard living, rand-by-rand, washing laundry in Katlehong.

Her roots are shallow there. She came to Gauteng from Durban a few years ago, moving from one informal settlement to another.

After Zandile was attacked, Thandi was evicted from her shack by the owner, who claimed she had brought "bad luck".

Although she had appealed to Zandile's father, who lives in Durban, for help after the attack, his promises of money did not materialise.

The attacker phoned Thandi with threats to kill her and her children.

Stranded and desperate, and with Zandile almost ready to be discharged from hospital, Thandi turned her children over to the Gauteng department of social development, which found them a foster home on Friday.

Although Thandi had been offered a place with her children for six months by the Alberton Methodist Church's Amcare project, she was worried that the time was not long enough.

"My children have already missed a lot of schooling, so they must go to school for the year," said Thandi, who is sharing a friend's shack at the moment.

Following media reports about the police's failure to arrest the suspect after two-and-a-half months, the man was taken into custody this week.

Though Thandi is relieved and happy, having spent a lot of time tracking down his work address for the police, she said she still needs time to get back on her feet so that she can provide a proper home for her children.

"Amcare says it will train me in catering, so I'm hoping I'll be able to learn and get a proper job so I can get my children back again." - Health-e News Service.

* Not their real names