Sunday Times, South Africa - February 14, 1999
Nicki Padayachee

The young woman will appear in the Pretoria High Court, where she will come face to face with the prisoner - the man she will identify as the one who gave her the killer virus and one of five men who raped her on her mother's bed last September.

But now, as she battles through her days and long nights, she has no time to think of the sentence he may get. That's because the man she claims raped her has already sentenced her to death - she is HIV-positive.

It is not only her condition that makes her angry. What hurts even more is that she has no money - her retired father has to pay for her medical care.

He also has to pay for the psychologist who tries at least once a week to help her deal with the pain and anguish she has endured since the day she lost her virginity to those five men.

"There are times when I get suicidal," she said. "But I know that killing myself would hurt my parents even more."

Her medical bills amount to R5 000 a month, but the man she accuses of raping her gets his treatment for free - at taxpayers' expense.

The nightmare began at around 6pm that September evening, when the young woman, her mother, Henley, and a friend arrived at their farmhouse outside Balfour in Mpumalanga.

The young victim said: "We had been grocery shopping and I was carrying food into the kitchen, excited about making vegetable soup. Just then, in the hallway, I saw the silhouetted figure of a man carrying a knife. Then the others rushed in, grabbed my mother and her friend and held my mother's shotgun to my head."

The five intruders then tied the three women up - using electrical cables and curtain cord - in one of the bedrooms.

"In the room, one of the men tried to rape me, but my legs were bound together. They dragged me to the main bedroom and I pleaded with them to stop, telling them I was a virgin," she said.

But the men had no mercy and one by one began to rape the young woman.

She said: "I was in incredible pain. It felt as though I didn't have any muscles left. They held a knife to my throat and told me they were going to kill me."

Her mother could only listen helplessly to her daughter crying out in pain during the rape. She said this week: "To spare my daighter, I would have taken her place a thousand times."

When the five men had finished, one of them put her jeans back on, gave her a kiss and mockingly told her that he loved her. But the ordeal was still not over - the young woman had to go to a district surgeon for an examination. All she was given was an antiseptic vaginal cream and a post-coital contraceptive pill.

She said the doctor did not tell her of the existence of the drugs AZT and 3TC, which, if taken within 72 hours of potential exposure, reduce the chances of contracting AIDS by as much as 80 percent.

A week after the rape, a doctor told her that one of her alleged attackers was HIV-positive.

"I freaked out," she said. "I couldn't grasp even the possibility of having the virus."

She was then subjected to a gruelling series of 11 blood tests - the first 10 came back negative, but the last confirmed her worst fears.

This tragedy has provoked strong reaction from South African women's groups. Palesa Makhetha, spokesman for People Opposing Women Abuse, said women felt the societal impact of AIDS far more than men.

Makhetha said: "The government should take responsibility and offer assistance to people who are HIV-positive - especially in a case such as this."

Joanne Fedler, an independent gender policy consultant, said health care for prisoners was a basic human right and a sign of a progressive country.

However, when both prisoners and their victims are in need of treatment, the government should focus more of its resources on the victims.

She said: "State-funded treatment for HIV-positive rape victims is a necessity. We must become a victim-centred democracy."

A spokesman for the Department of Correctional Services, Barry Eksteen, confirmed prisoners' medical treatment was provided by the state. Inmates are treated by prison doctors or district surgeons.

So while the alleged rapist sits in prison, his young victim has sleepless nights and terrifying flashbacks - the fear she experienced becoming real again. Nevertheless, she is managing to look towards the future.

She would still like to get married, adopt children and give them lots of love.

"But," she said, "I would have to meet a very special person."
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