Raped boy, 13, suicidal

2008-07-17 09:52

Carryn-Ann Nel

Atlantis - "I just feel like killing myself".

Tears flow from the green eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy. He wipes them off, hard, with the sleeve of his tracksuit top. His grandmother hands him a tissue.

The boy and his nine-year-old sister were allegedly raped for between two and three years by a male relative in their home. The man was later found not guilty.

Now, two years after he and his sister told their story and battled through a court case, the family is still struggling to work through it all.

"I am poor at my school work. And I feel I am not getting the love which I got before," said the boy. His sister looks at him. She doesn't say a word.

The grandmother, who lives with them and raised them, said the children's mother was also raped in 2006. "Only after she told us of her experience, did my granddaughter and then, four days later, my grandson tell us how funny things had been done to them."

The man was charged with both rapes and awaited trial for a year-and-a-half. He was found not guilty in March 2008.

Hysterical in court

According to the grandmother, both children "closed up" during the trial. "The boy once became hysterical in the courtroom and shouted that he didn't want to talk anymore. Eventually it was too heavy for his mental side (sic)."

A counsellor who is assisting the family, said neither of the children had been seen by a professional psychologist. She felt that had a psychologist supported the children in court, things would have been different now.

"Both children testified until the end. And then it became too much for them and they closed up," said the grandmother.

The little girl fetches a letter in which she describes what happened to her.

"It affects them," said the grandmother. "My grandson has suicidal tendencies and that is why I am scared to go to bed at night. He sleeps with knives under his bed, he has taken pills."

The grandmother says she doesn't want to move away because she doesn't know what will be waiting for them somewhere else.

"Here is still too much pain".

- Die Burger