Rape survivor seeks to inspire ‘victims’
Dutywa’s Apleni uses years of abuse by her father to help others
As the country observes 16 days of activism against women and child abuse, an Eastern Cape woman has shared her ordeal of being repeatedly raped by her father.
Zizo Apleni from Dutywa, now 24, was just seven and in Grade 1 when her father, Nkosinathi Mqoboli, started raping her whenever her stepmother was not home. He raped her until she was 13.
She fell pregnant but terminated the pregnancy.
Provincial correctional services spokesperson Nobuntu Gantana confirmed Mqoboli is serving time.
Apleni, who approached the Daily Dispatch and has given permission to be identified, said her parents never married.
“I was raised by my grandmother until my father requested I come and live with him, his wife and child when I was seven. Following numerous incidents of physical abuse, one night my stepmother left the house and that is when the rape started,” she said.
Apleni recalled how she never told anyone because, as a child, she did not know that her father had done something wrong and inappropriate.
“Although my stepmother returned home, she would still go away some weekends and holidays to visit her family, and that is when my father would rape me again,” she said.
Apleni said a year later her biological mother became concerned about her drastic weight loss and moved Apleni back to Dutywa to live with her, but she would still visit her father over the holidays and the sexual assault would continue.
Apleni was 12 when she started learning about older male figures who touch or act inappropriately, and she confronted her father.
“That is when the threats started. He told me that no one would believe me and that the family would hate me for starting trouble, and the rapes continued,” said Apleni.
She said her father was arrested when she discovered she was pregnant in 2007 and was forced to tell her mother who had impregnated her.
After a trial, Mqoboli was found guilty and convicted.
Apleni said she wanted to speak up for rape victims who may feel they are alone because “victims often understand the language of another victim better than anyone else”.
She has written a book, My Father Took My Innocence, and is in the final stages of editing it. — with additional reporting by Malibongwe Dayimani..
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