Free minutes turn into week of hell, says rape victim

04 March 2015 - 17:12 By Tumelo waga Dibakwane
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Image: Gallo Images/Thinkstock

Police in Mpumalanga are investigating a case in which a 36-year-old woman from KwaZulu-Natal was reportedly kept as a sex slave in Mpumalanga after falling in love with a rapist over the phone.

The woman, Cynthia Lushaba, from Port Shepstone, (who agreed to be named) travelled all the way to Tsakane village in Marite between Bushbuckridge and Hazyview to meet a man she had only spoken to on the phone. This ended up in her being kept as a sex slave for five days.

"A case of rape has been opened to allow the police to investigate the incident. We need to determine if the complaint was held hostage and raped for five days or not," said Calcutta police station spokesman Constable Robert Makhubela.

The woman said her captor first called her a few months ago, telling her that they met some time back and that he was only calling to check if they are okay.

“After the first call we continued to call each other during midnight using free minutes and I eventually fell for him because he sounded like a gentleman. I dated him even though I had never met or seen his face,” she said.

Lushaba said that she agreed to visit her mystery boyfriend in Tsakane on February 15, 2015.

She said when she finally arrived at Tsakane village she realised that the man she was visiting was bad news.

“Just after I got to his place I realised that something was wrong with him. When I told him that I wanted to go back the he became aggressive towards me and told me that am not going anywhere. He repeatedly raped me the whole night and the next day he locked me up at the back room of his parents' house.

Realising she didn't have access to a phone to call for help, she begged the man to take her a clinic to collect her medication.

"He agreed and when we got to Tsakane clinic I tried to signal to the security guards that I was in trouble. The security guards didn’t see that I was asking for help and my abductor realised that I was signaling for help. He beat me up in front of the people and took me to the nearest river and continued to beat me and threatened to feed me to the crocodiles if ever tried to do what I did,” she said.

Lushaba added that she managed to escape on February 2015 after waiting for her captor to sleep.

When the alleged captor, whose name is known to African Eye News Service, was contacted for comment, he pretended to be someone else.

However, he later called the journalist back and threatened to kill him if the story was published. - African Eye News Service

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