Child Rape Survivor Helps Other Virgin Myth Victims

Hope was 14 years old when her uncle raped her. He trapped her to the ground and covered her mouth with his hand, then threatened to kill her if she ever told anybody. So, she kept quiet. A few months later people around the villages started saying that that she looked pregnant. Hope was not only pregnant, but her uncle had infected her with HIV. Like many young girls in Zimbabwe, Hope was the victim of a widely held belief that if a man with HIV or AIDS rapes a virgin he will be cured of his disease. This so-called virgin myth, perpetuated by Zimbabwe's traditional “healers”, has led to the rape of hundreds of girls, according to UNICEF. Some of these victims are too young to walk, much less protect themselves.

Betty Makoni has fought for nearly a decade to protect her country's young girls from sexual abuse. And she's witnessed some of the worst cases of the myth in action. The youngest girl she ever came across was a day-old baby who was raped. Through her Girl Child Network (GCN), Makoni has helped rescue 35,000 girls from abuse -- including now 18-year-old Hope. Ten girls per day report rape cases, which means that if unchecked, at least 3,600 girls per year may be contracting HIV and AIDS."

Ms. Makoni's own tragic experiences fuel her fierce determination. She was raped when she was 6 years old. Her attacker was a local shopkeeper. Her mother would not allow her to report the abuse. "She said, 'Shh, we don't say that in public,' " Makoni remembered. Betty Makoni had no shoulder to cry on. Three years later, she witnessed her father murder her mother. In that moment, Makoni said she realized the potentially deadly consequence of a woman's silence. She told herself that no girl or woman will suffer the same again.

Believing an education would provide her the best opportunity and means to speak out, Betty Makoni earned two university degrees and became a teacher. While teaching, she noticed that girls were dropping out of school at an alarming rate. She approached her students with an idea. “Let's have our own space where we talk and find solutions," Makoni said. Girl Child Network was born. By the end of the first year, there were 100 GCN clubs throughout Zimbabwe where girls could find support. Ms. Makoni said she was not surprised: "Every woman and girl identified with the issues that we were raising," she said.

In 2000, she quit her teaching job to volunteer with GCN full time. The following year she successfully procured a piece of land and opened the organization's first empowerment village, designed to provide a haven for girls who have been abused. Girls are either rescued or referred to the village by social services, the police and the community. The healing begins as soon as a girl arrives. In the first 72 hours, a girl is provided with emergency medication, reinstatement in school, as well as counseling.

It is important to her that the girls are in charge of their own healing. "It gives them the confidence to transform from victims to leaders," she explained. The process helps the girls work through the times when many thought their life had come to an end. Today, GCN has grown to 700 girls' clubs and three empowerment villages across Zimbabwe. An estimated 300,000 girls have received assistance.

But for Betty Makoni, speaking out came with a high personal cost. In 2008, she was forced to flee her native country. She left Zimbabwe because her life was in danger as a result of her project being interpreted politically. Today, she lives with her family in the United Kingdom. She still serves as executive director of her organization and shows no signs of slowing down. GCN has partnered with the DOVE project, a group based in Essex, England, that deals with domestic violence. "We are now bringing the girls from a local community to the international scene," she said. Her efforts in Zimbabwe are highlighted in the film documentary, Tapestries of Hope.

It's disappointing to know that grown men are foolish enough to believe in such nonsense and will take to raping infants and toddlers in a ridiculous attempt to save themselves. Yes, if these men, and I use the term loosely, were educated they would know better than to believe that raping a child cures AIDS. But even if they DO believe that, it still doesn't explain why they are evil enough to go through with raping a child. This is absolutely horrific and depressing! I can't fathom anyone perpetrating such atrocities towards other people, especially newborn babies! Lack of education or not, ignorance is no excuse for such depravity! There needs to be justice and everyone involved in such horrific and unimaginable crimes SHOULD FACE “REAL” JUSTICE.

In Tanzania, Albinos fear for their lives because some "traditional healer" says using their body parts for ritual sacrifice will bring them lots of money. We are talking about another human being hunted down like an animal to be killed and sacrificed. Just recently in Nigeria, there was a case of the wife of some newspaper owner who beheaded a young boy as sacrifice in order to cure her ailing children. And stuff like this isn't just Africans - the Germans in WWII camps used to put virgins in bed with frozen corpses in the hope that they would thaw out and come back to life.

While this is terribly sad, we need to recognize that it happens everywhere, including the U.S. Maybe not for the same reasons, i.e. the virgin myth, but child molestations happen in the U.S. daily. 1 in 3 girls is molested before her 18th birthday and 1 in 5-6 boys, across the United States.

Want to get involved? Check out the Girl Child Network and Promise Place to see how to help.
http://www.promiseplace.net
http://www.girlchildnetworkworldwide.org