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'I want to see my children'

ATTENTION: One of Ndlovu's kids with a wound. Pic. Unknown.
ATTENTION: One of Ndlovu's kids with a wound. Pic. Unknown.

FOR two days last week, Sizakele Ndlovu (name changed) camped outside the Mary Moodley Place of Safety in Actonville, Ekurhuleni, begging to be allowed in to see her child.

FOR two days last week, Sizakele Ndlovu (name changed) camped outside the Mary Moodley Place of Safety in Actonville, Ekurhuleni, begging to be allowed in to see her child.

She had heard that the youngest of her two children was injured and had not been taken to hospital.

But she was not allowed in. The children, aged two and five, had been taken away from her after allegations that the youngest had been raped.

"I have been having nightmares since the children were taken," she said. "They are my children and they belong to me. I want to raise them myself.

"They told me the child was raped. I deny it.

"In fact the first doctor who examined the child responded negatively.

"The social workers took her to a second doctor who then reported lies," she said.

"I have not been sleeping well since they were taken."

Her bitterness and sadness stem from a string of incidents in which government officials took her two- and five-year-old children away from her after they alleged the youngest had been raped.

Her woes started at the beginning of September when she came home to find her children missing.

"A search led me to the house of an elderly woman opposite a local shebeen. I was told they had been placed there by a social worker. The incident left me confused," Ndlovu said.

She took her children home but a week later the police came to fetch them and took them to the centre.

"They forced me to sign a document they did not allow me to take away and study," she said.

Ndlovu said three rape tests were conducted on her child.

"Two came out negative," she said.

She said she was told that the third test came out positive.

Last Sunday, 20 days since her children were taken, she discovered that the youngest had a wound in her left armpit.

Her plea and cries for the child to be taken to hospital fell on deaf ears because employees at the centre kicked her out and refused her family entry to the centre.

The two-year-old was allegedly refused treatment for 24 hours and taken to school the following day without any medical attention.

Yesterday she did not know whether her daughter had been admitted to a hospital since the centre's staff refused to give her information.

Now Ndlovu, who threatened to commit suicide, wants her children to be moved to another place of safety until the claims of sexual abuse are concluded.

"They say I will hear in court what happened to my child and I do not know whether she has been admitted to hospital or not," Ndlovu said.

Department of social development spokesperson Teddy Gomba gave conflicting answers about the wound.

First he said "the toddler came to the centre with the wound".

Later he said "the child was found with a wound yhat no one could explain or had seen before".

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