Sex worker wins rape case
The woman in this case has five children to support, is a single parent who grew up without a mother, and has insufficient job skills to support herself and her children.
A 38-year-old sex worker won her court case against a man who raped her in the Marburg area on January 23, 2020.
Senior Magistrate Johann Bester recently handed down life imprisonment to Xolile Kweshube (49) in the Port Shepstone Regional Court.
Kweshube was on parole when he committed the rape. He had served half of a 30-year-sentence imposed on him in the High Court at Port St Johns for murder and armed robbery. He is now also serving the balance of the sentence imposed on him in 2001.
Bester said that sex workers very, very seldom engage in the profession because they want to.
“It is generally accepted that they do so because they have no alternative. At times they have to drug themselves to deal with the shame and the disdain and abuse that go hand in hand with their profession,” he said.
The woman in this case has five children to support, is a single parent who grew up without a mother, and has insufficient job skills to support herself and her children.
Bester said it is the duty of the court to indicate to men in society that women are to be treated with dignity and respect, just as one expects that men will be so treated.
The treatment suffered by this woman at the hands of Kweshube was egregious, cruel and brutal.
Apart from the assaults on her, he drove her around naked like an animal, forcing her to have sex on the grass and on the gravel.
He traumatised her by suggesting that he was a serial killer who had killed several prostitutes and that she, too, was to be murdered for putting the Pondo clan to shame.
He made her wash her genitals with dirty water from a mud pool.
Ultimately she ended up in hospital with post-traumatic stress disorder and was suicidal.
Bester said he was unable to find any compelling circumstances to justify the imposition of a lighter sentence.
“I refuse to accept that because the complainant is a prostitute she has a lesser right to dignity than other women when it comes to rape and sexual violation. Rape is a crime of violence, of domination and of humiliation,” he said.
“If I allowed myself to believe that it is less heinous to rape a prostitute than someone else, I would make myself guilty of bias and the constitution proscribes such an attitude. If allowed, next we will be saying that it is less heinous to rape a woman who gets drunk at a party or a girl who happens to be wearing a short skirt.”
Bester added that it’s necessary to remove Kweshube from society for the rest of his life.
He has killed, robbed and raped and society needs to be protected from him.
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