Daughter forgives father who raped her

“Never ever hold grudges against anyone. Never, ever allow to carry someone's sin by holding grudges.”

These were the touching, inspirational and encouraging words from a 22-year-old victim who was raped by his own middle-aged father while she was still very young.

All this recently happened at the Thohoyandou Correctional Centre during a victim-offender dialogue session, which was chaired by Dr Philip Hlungwane.

Hlungwane emphasised the fact that “when family fails and children disobey parents' rules, the result is what we are seeing here now,” pointing at the offenders.

Victim-offender dialogue is a programme that was established in 2012 as a tool to encourage and promote social reintegration and forgiveness between two parties, namely the victim and offender.

Members of the community, stakeholders and traditional leaders attended the event. Even the scorching sun of Thohoyandou did not deter the 2000 people from witnessing the dialogue. The theme of the dialogue was Reconciliation is a key to peace, healing and harmony.

The purpose of the victim-offender dialogues is, among others, to provide an opportunity for a victim and offender to discuss the offense and get answers to the questions regarding the act of the crime. “It also provides a platform for both the offender and victim to express their feelings and emotions and get a greater sense of closure. It also gives an opportunity for the broad community to participate in the fight against crime and recidivism,” said the spokesperson for the Thohoyandou management area, Mr Tshifhiwa Magadani.

“We are indeed moving away from the inclination of forgetting and neglecting victims of crimes once sentencing has been passed by our courts, and it is a hub to the departmental mandate of rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders,” Magadani.

A victim of rape, who forgave her father, said she had been struggling to come to terms with what her father had done to her. “It was very difficult to believe and accept the fact that my own father raped me,” she said, holding her tears back. “But I cannot keep holding grudges for the rest of my life, hence I am letting bygones be bygones.”

The father also expressed feelings of deep remorse. “I feel bad about the whole scenario,” he said as the crowd listened to him. "I don’t know what came over me".

Another perpetrator, Mr Given Mathebula from Mavambe village, was so emotional that he nearly cried. “I nearly killed him (the victim), whom I stabbed 24 times,” he said. "At that time, I did not care because I was drunk. I was just after his cell phone, money and other valuable items. I was young and wet behind the ears when I committed that heinous crime."

Looking down with shame, Mathebula asked the victim to forgive him. He concluded by giving advice to the young people. “Please, dear brothers and sisters, try to concentrate on your studies and refrain from bad fiends,” he said. “Stay away from drugs and alcohol abuse.”

Tshilidzi Masikhwa, the founder member of the Thohoyandou Victim Empowerment Programme, said that the programme was formed in 1999. “We started this in conjunction with the SAPS, after the high rate of domestic violence, child and women abuse, and sexual violence in the area,” Masikhwa said.

Date:20 March 2015

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

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