Foster care for kids after brutal attacks
Last November, her seven-year-old daughter, Zandile* was raped and had her throat slit by Thandi’s abusive ex-boyfriend.
Her five-year-old son, Thabo* witnessed the entire attack, and was sitting next his sister as she struggled to breathe when their mother finally came home that Sunday night on 20 November.
Zandile has spent the past two-and-a-half months recuperating at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, including a week in the intensive care unit.
‘I feel so guilty,’ whispers Thandi, a thin line of tears running down each cheek. ‘Every time I see her, I feel so guilty that I was not there.’
Thandi had lived with the man in Phase Six in Katlehong, but finally left him last February because he was ‘so abusive’ ‘ both to her and the children, especially when he was drunk.
Abandoned by her own mother as a toddler after getting badly burnt in a shack fire, Thandi never wanted to abandon her own children.
But the 28-year-old, who has extensive facial scars, earns a hard living, rand-by-rand, washing laundry in Katlehong.
Her roots are shallow here, having moved to Gauteng from Durban a few years back, moving from one informal settlement to another.
After Zandile was attacked, Thandi was evicted from her shack by the owner, who claimed she had brought ‘bad luck’.
Although she had appealed to Zandile’s father, who lives in Durban, for help after the attack, his promise of money never materialised.
In the meantime, the attacker was still roaming free and he had phoned Thandi, promising to kill her and her children.
Stranded and desperate, and with Zandile almost ready to be discharged from CHB Hospital, Thandi turned her children over to the Germiston social development department who found them a foster home on Friday.
Although Thandi had been offered a place with her children for six months with the Alberton Methodist Church’s Amcare project, she was worried that the time was not long enough.
‘My children have already missed a lot of school, so they must go to school for the year,’ says Thandi, who is sharing a friend’s shack at the moment.
Following media reports about the police’s failure to arrest the suspect after two-and-a-half months, the man was finally taken into custody this week.
While Thandi is relieved and happy, having spent a lot of her own time tracking down his work address for the police, she says she still needs time to get back on her feet again so that she can provide a proper home for her children.
‘Amcare says they will train me in catering, so I am hoping I be able to learn and get a proper job so that I can get my children back again.’
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