A victim of the taxi rapists and the mother of two other victims have come forward to tell of their experiences.
Cynthia Lefakana said that on 21 March her two daughters Tiisetso, 19, and Neo, 21, waited for a taxi to take them home from Southgate Shopping Mall. Unbeknown to them and another woman – whom we will call Fatima as she wishes to remain anonymous – the three of them were picked up by the ‘Rape taxi’. Fortunately they were not raped but were held at gunpoint during which R700, two cellphones and Fatima’s bank card were stolen from them. The three suspects also drove around with them, withdrawing money from various ATMs. When they dropped them off, they gave the women R70 for taxi fare – as in the other cases.
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Fatima told her story via email. “On 22 August last year, early in that morning, I was abducted by three armed men in an unmarked white Quantum. Thank God I wasn’t physically harmed, outside of the bruises from the brute force one man used to take me down. Their vehicle is modified to keep a person pinned to the floor of the taxi, between metal seats, while they drive around unnoticed,” she wrote.
“The police officer who took my statement was well aware of the taxi and the number of men, and even that they were armed. I never heard from the police again, except for a text message informing me that the case was moved to Roodepoort. I laid the charge at the Florida Police Station,” she went on to say.
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“Emotionally, my healing is still in progress and news of this happening again and again painfully thwarts this progress. What can we as a community do? I have asked someone who works with a private security company to set up a decoy to catch these men. Finding a trained female willing to do this is challenging though.
“These men (and I feel it’s the same three men) are intelligent and brazen. Unstopped, they are clearly getting worse, but they follow the same pattern – targeting people on Ontdekkers Road around the same time of the month,” wrote Fatima.
“It pains me greatly to know that the police are ‘allowing’ this to continue for nearly a year – same area, same vehicle, same modus operandi.
“I feel helpless and afraid of my own neighbourhood, but hopeful something can be done,” she concluded.
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