PODCAST | Raped and then raped again: an 11-year-old's horror story

Somewhere in Burgersfort, Limpopo, there is an 11-year-old girl whose life will never be the same. She sits quietly on a bright red wooden bench beneath a tree, gripping her father's hand. Her parents fear she is on the verge of another epileptic fit. Since her second rape, the fits have intensified.

As her father speaks about the family's anxious wait for her HIV results, the girl watches leaves blow across the dusty front yard of their home.

She is seated just a stone’s throw away from the outdoor toilet that served as the scene of her first assault.  

In today’s episode of Boots on the Ground: Behind South Africa’s National Headlines, we are going to interrogate sexual assault and the scourge of gender-based violence in SA.    

Listen to her story here:

This short podcast series follows Sunday Times reporter Alex Patrick and senior reporter Graeme Hosken, as they track, record and reflect on the real events and people that make up SA’s biggest Covid-19 news stories.

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