Jesus helped me forgive

Jesus let me forgive

By Nola Nala

Rape. According to the Law Reform Commission, it is estimated that there are 1.7 million rapes a year in South Africa with only 54,000 cases being reported. In broad perspective, if someone is raped they are just part of a statistic, another number to add to the list. The problem is that when it happens, it is not broad, it is personal and devastating. What do you do when you are violated? What do you do when it’s someone you know and trusted? How do you forgive when those you love turn on you? This is Ashley Mnguni’s story:

Ashley, 20, was only nine years old when her father had decided to relocate to England, leaving her mom with Ashley and her two younger brothers. This wasn’t so bad until just two years later her mom decided to follow her dad and leave the three children in the care of the one of the dad’s younger brothers, an uncle.

Ashley recalls still living in her family home. “My uncle had to quit his job and moved in with us, I was the only girl in a house full of guys.” Life was good and it didn’t faze Ashley that her parents were gone, as she had family support and more especially another one of her dad’s brothers who had step in her father’s role. They had a very close relationship as she would often visit him with her half-sister, Mbali. Ashley’s childhood was untainted by life so far, that is why the betrayal hurt all that more.

Ashley’s uncle had come over one late Tuesday to ask if Ashley would visit him the next day after school at his Yeoville flat. This seemed like a normal request except this time he only wanted Ashley and not Mbali. So with no reason for suspicion Ashley’s guardian uncle agreed and she herself was excited.

She arrived after school to an empty flat and had to wait a few hours before he returned home at around 6pm. There was not much to do so Ashley suggested that they go see a movie, which they did. When they arrived home from the movie house, Ashley took a bath before bed. “I had realised that I left my pyjamas, so I put on my tracksuit pants.” Her uncle suggested that she wear his boxers instead as she had always done in the past visits with her sister. Without a beat, Ashley had changed and it was time for bed. Ashley slept on the bed while her uncle slept on the couch, as was routine. She had had a good day and she never imagined she would experience what she did that night.

She awoke in the middle of the night to find the boxers she had slept wearing, all the way down by her feet. More gruesome than that was that “He was on top of me. I tried screaming but he covered my mouth and then he raped me.” She adds, “I don’t think I have ever felt fear like that ever in my life. I thought I was going to die.”

After the ordeal he spoke to her and told her she was a good girl, but Ashley could not stop crying and didn’t go back to sleep the rest of the night.

The next morning Ashley woke up and got ready for school. “When I went to take a bath, there was blood everywhere” she recalls. She washed up and he offered to drive her to school. When dropping her off, he handed her R100 but she didn’t take his money. “I felt like I was dead. I hated my uncle. I could never forgive him for what he did to me.”

Being a naturally reserved person she spent the next few weeks locked up in her room crying. She talks about how she felt like it was the end of her life. “My innocence was taken away. Everything that made me happy was gone.” At home she was always grumpy and was mean to her brothers due to all of the anger inside her. “There were times were I felt I had attracted this to myself” she confesses.

Through a curious housekeeper, Ashley’s journal was discovered. The journal details lead to her uncle’s arrest. The court case began but in the process she lost her dad’s family that had raised her. She reveals “they just turned their backs on me and my brothers.” The worse part being that her parents separated in England and she and her brothers were forced to leave their childhood home and move in with her mom’s brother and his family.

Even worse, through bribery on her father’s side, the case was never resolved and her uncle is a free man.

Even with all this, Ashley has found peace and forgiveness through Jesus. “I still have the memories, but it feels like it never happened.” This experience has toughened her as she was always a generally sweet person. What I thank God for is that “Now I can smile again.”