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- The leaders of the KwaSizabantu Mission are expected to appear before the CRL Rights Commission on Wednesday to respond to the abuse allegations made against them.
- This is despite a scathing lawyer’s letter sent to the commission by the mission, criticizing its investigation as “fatally flawed.”
- This comes after the second day of the commission’s investigation into allegations of abuse at the mission, including accounts of rape, virginity tests, censorship and secrecy.
The leaders of the KwaSizabantu Mission are expected to testify and respond to allegations of abuse leveled against them in the CRL Rights Commission investigation on Wednesday.
READ | KwaSizabantu: CRL Rights Commission to open hearings on allegations of human rights abuse
The Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Rights Commission) launched a three-day investigation into these allegations in Durban after extensive exposure on News24, detailing allegations of sexual assault, abuse Physical and psychological. as well as financial crimes.
The commission said they expected the KwaSizabantu leader to appear on Wednesday, despite a scathing lawyer’s letter sent to the commission, criticizing its investigation as “fatally flawed.”
The commission’s chairman, Professor David Mosoma, told News24 that they had responded to the mission’s concerns.
“If they have a challenge, let them challenge our report, but they cannot pass judgment,” Mosoma said.
He spoke after a full day of testimony from former members of the KwaSizabantu Mission, including Manfred Stegen, brother of the mission leader, Erlo Stegen.
Virginity test
The second day began with the story of a woman who had been on the mission as a child.
Testifying at the commission, Thandi * described how she was forced to undergo virginity tests when she was five years old.
She described how, at that young age, she did not understand what menstruation was, but when she saw the bloodstained tissues during the test, she was scarred for life.
After Thandi was forced to undergo virginity tests, she was accused of being “impure” and questioned by the adults about who had “touched” her.
“I didn’t know what they were talking about, and then they said, ‘Did you sleep with a boy?’ And I didn’t understand. I told them yes, sometimes I sleep with my father and my mother… then they said: ‘No, but who touched you?’ “
After this conversation, Thandi was sent to another room where she was kept and isolated until dark. She did not eat or sleep.
A young R grade student knocked on the window and told Thandi to “say any child’s name.”
“I didn’t understand what was going on, so I gave them the name of a child. I gave them my cousin’s name because he was the only child I was exposed to.
“After that, they kept asking me questions about things that I didn’t even understand, that I couldn’t even understand; I was a boy,” Thandi said.
She was sent to therapy and had a virginity test once, after which surprisingly she was considered a virgin once again.
READ ALSO | ‘They have mind control over people’: Inquiry hears why a former member calls KwaSizabantu a ‘cult’
Thandi explained that this incident confused her as a child, but even as an adult she still cannot understand what happened.
Thandi also recounted an incident in which she was accused of having “television demons”, apparently because her family owned a television.
They forced her to confess everything she saw on television and “bury her demons.”
His parents were subsequently questioned about his television and ordered to burn it down.
He later explained that many media outlets were banned from the mission, except for the mission’s radio station: books were censored and access to outside media was limited.
Thandi remembered how she was suspended for wanting to read Long road to freedom.
She also described a paralyzing incident that she and other girls had experienced at the age of four when a “faceless man” infiltrated their bedrooms. “Most of us were raped at that time when we were children,” Thandi said through tears.
A mission of secrecy
Manfred Stegen, the brother of mission leader Erlo Stegen, also testified before the commission on Tuesday.
While the young Stegen left the mission as an adult, he recalled, “over the years, I can say, from the beginning, there was something that bothered me, and that was the secret.”
“Things happened, and the congregation and we never knew why,” Manfred Stegen said.
He recounted an incident in which a member of the mission, originally from Zimbabwe, was told to leave after apparently criticizing the mission.
He objected to being expelled, saying his wife and children were on the mission.
“In a week, he committed suicide, hanged himself in a tree, nobody knew why.”
“I am old enough to say that it was one of Hitler’s strengths: secrecy. No one knew what was happening in the country,” Stegen said.
He explained that his older brother, Friedel Stegen, was also expelled from the mission after being accused of wanting to take KwaSizabantu from Erlo Stegen.
He called this an atrocity, saying his brother was 92 years old and in a wheelchair. “He couldn’t even roll over in a bed,” he said.
Stegen also spoke of how his own children were brutally beaten at the mission for arbitrary reasons, and how confession of sins was used against members of the mission.
She added that she had brought her brother’s attention to the rape on the mission, but he said, “Oh, these girls.
“He became one of those guys who always blame women,” Stegen said.
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