'My child is alive'
15 December 2009, 08:09
"My child is alive".
To the mother of the teenager who was apparently kidnapped and raped, nothing else mattered the moment she heard her daughter was safe.
The 14-year-old girl disappeared on Thursday last week. It is believed that the kidnapping and what followed were facilitated through the social networking medium MXit.
Police earlier confirmed that she had been in contact with the suspects through MXit.
According to an email and notices the girl's desperate parents circulated, their daughter went missing at about 11.30am on December 10. It is believed that she had gone to buy cellphone airtime at the Sinoville shopping centre, in Pretoria, when she was kidnapped.
"I came from work that day. She wasn't home. I phoned her, but her phone was off. After I contacted her friends, I realised she was gone," her mother said yesterday.
The family even hired a private investigator to help trace their child.
Neither the mother nor the girl can be identified, as the victim is a minor and was sexually abused.
She was found in Potchefstroom on Saturday night. Two men were arrested.
"My child is alive. Whatever happened to her while she was gone, we can deal with it, we will work through it, as long as I got her back alive," she said.
Her mother said she was receiving trauma counselling and was on medication. It is school holidays and the mother's employer has given her time off to be with her child.
A 35-year-old man appeared in the Pretoria North Magistrate's Court yesterday on charges of kidnapping and rape. His co-accused was not present.
The men cannot be identified as they have not pleaded to the rape charge yet.
To the mother of the teenager who was apparently kidnapped and raped, nothing else mattered the moment she heard her daughter was safe.
The 14-year-old girl disappeared on Thursday last week. It is believed that the kidnapping and what followed were facilitated through the social networking medium MXit.
Police earlier confirmed that she had been in contact with the suspects through MXit.
According to an email and notices the girl's desperate parents circulated, their daughter went missing at about 11.30am on December 10. It is believed that she had gone to buy cellphone airtime at the Sinoville shopping centre, in Pretoria, when she was kidnapped.
"I came from work that day. She wasn't home. I phoned her, but her phone was off. After I contacted her friends, I realised she was gone," her mother said yesterday.
The family even hired a private investigator to help trace their child.
Neither the mother nor the girl can be identified, as the victim is a minor and was sexually abused.
She was found in Potchefstroom on Saturday night. Two men were arrested.
"My child is alive. Whatever happened to her while she was gone, we can deal with it, we will work through it, as long as I got her back alive," she said.
Her mother said she was receiving trauma counselling and was on medication. It is school holidays and the mother's employer has given her time off to be with her child.
A 35-year-old man appeared in the Pretoria North Magistrate's Court yesterday on charges of kidnapping and rape. His co-accused was not present.
The men cannot be identified as they have not pleaded to the rape charge yet.
- This article was originally published on page 2 of The Star on December 15, 2009
Pretoria
