The protesters were furious. They tugged on the gate of the school where the mother said her 7-year-old daughter had been raped. They demanded that the school be closed, and threatened to burn it down.
Demonstrators in the small town of Matatiele, South Africa — known for its pristine, litter-free streets — have been furious ever since videos of the mother, Thandekile Mtshizana, were posted online a couple of months ago describing her daughter’s account of being assaulted at Bergview College.
The clips drew millions of views and have turned the case of the girl, known online by the pseudonym Cwecwe, into the latest flashpoint in South Africa’s long battle against sexual violence, challenging a culture of shame and silence. In rural communities like Matatiele, the case of Cwecwe has touched a nerve.
“This time we say it cannot be business as usual,” said Thapelo Monareng, a retail worker who took time off work to attend the protest in Matatiele. “We are here to say enough is enough.”
The police have said the investigation is ongoing and extremely sensitive. Tests did not find foreign DNA on the girl’s body or clothes, according to a presentation the police made to Parliament in April. The results of a doctor’s original examination were inconclusive, the police said, adding that they have no suspects.
An average of 118 rape are reported each day in South Africa, according to police statistics for the most recent year available. One in three South African women over 18 — or more than seven million — have been victims of physical violence at some point in their lives, the statistics say. Women’s rights activists have long criticized what they see as a tepid response from the government. Between 2018 and 2023, more than 61,740 rape cases and 5,523 sexual assault cases were closed without being solved.
“We come from an era where the penalty for beating a girl and sleeping with her by force was a goat and a few lashes at the chief’s court,” said Thabang Kuali, a traditional leader in Matatiele. While those days are now largely gone, Mr. Kuali said, he hoped that Cwecwe’s case would “shift the needle in how men think.”
“I saw men marching against rape for the first time in this Cwecwe matter,” he said.
Officials at Bergview did not respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for the school’s principal has said that based on the timing of Cwecwe’s injuries, he believed that she had been assaulted in the community, not at school.
Mrs. Mtshizana said she was not concerned about the inconclusiveness of the investigation. “I will get justice one way or the other,” she added.
The demonstrations culminated in March with a march to the office of President Cyril Ramaphosa to deliver a petition demanding that he declare sexual violence a national disaster in South Africa.
The Cwecwe case “must become a catalyst for systemic change — not just another flicker of attention that fades until the next tragedy,” said Sabrina Walter, the founder of Women for Change, the organization that drafted the petition.
Declaring a national disaster would allow the government to quickly fund efforts to tackle gender-based violence, Ms. Walter said. And it also would enable better collaboration across government agencies, from law enforcement to health and social services.
Mrs. Mtshizana says she reported her daughter’s assault to the police as soon as her daughter told her it happened in October, but that the story only received attention in March, when she posted about it on TikTok after months of waiting for the police to make an arrest.
She says her daughter told her that a caretaker at the school had asked her to sweep a classroom. The girl recalled that while she was sweeping, she smelled what seemed like burning tires and then fell asleep, said Mrs. Mtshizana. Her daughter woke up with injuries but did not know what had happened.
Mrs. Mtshizana, who is a police officer at a separate station, said that after her daughter came home from school with stomach pains and blood stains on her track pants, she took her to a doctor, who examined her and then broke the horrific news that she had been raped.
“I cried,” Mrs. Mtshizana said in video shared on social media. “I cried because I am also a victim of rape. I know how it feels.”
Mrs. Mtshizana said she had decided to go public because she felt that the police investigation was dragging and that it had become difficult to get updates. Her mind drifted to how she felt when she was raped at 20, she said, and the betrayal she felt by the justice system in the aftermath.
“I still live with those scars,” she said. “I want different for my daughter.”
Before the attack, Mrs. Mtshizana said, her daughter had been a top performer in her first grade class. She loved being a big sister. Now, her daughter is reserved and sketches broken hearts, she said.
“All I can do is fight for her.”
John Eligon is the Johannesburg bureau chief for The Times, covering a wide range of events and trends that influence and shape the lives of ordinary people across southern Africa.
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