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Manfred Stegen, brother of KSB leader Erlo Stegen, testifies in the CRL Rights Commission investigation.
- A teacher from the KwaSizabantu Mission has come out in defense of the religious organization.
- She said the mission saved her from her father’s abuse.
- She told the CRL Rights Commission The mission never required women to wear dresses.
A current resident and teacher of the KwaSizabantu Mission has come out in defense of the besieged religious entity, saying she never witnessed or experienced abuse by any of its members.
Anita Van Der Watt, a teacher at the mission school, who also lived with the mission leader, Reverend Erlo Stegen and his family, said she never experienced abuse from KwaSizabantu members and that the mission had saved her. of the physical and sexual abuse of his father.
Van Der Watt, who had lived in the mission for most of his life, gave an enthusiastic testimony of KwaSizabantu on Wednesday at the Garden Court Hotel in Durban before the CRL Commission on Rights, saying that while children would be given “hiding places” , there were no physical excesses. abuse.
He said that upon arriving at the mission in the mid-1990s with his mother and sister, alleged outright victim of sexual abuse Marietjie Bothma, “they were given a home within the house of Reverend Erlo Stegen and grew up with their six daughters.” .
“Moving into that house, we had to adapt to a new lifestyle. We were excited. Before we lived on a plot and had no friends. When we moved to [the] Stegen House, they became true brothers. Stegen and his wife were my second parents. “
His father, who was working in the Defense Force at the time, retired and also moved on to the mission.
“It was only in late 1993 or early 1994 that my father, who stayed in Pretoria to continue working, decided to join us after taking his package. When he arrived, Reverend Stegen and the mission gave us a home to stay together. It was connected to the church auditorium. “
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She said the family felt they were almost the caretakers of the church.
“However, leaving Stegen’s house was sad. I approached his second youngest daughter; she was a grade below me. I used to say, ‘You have to be smarter so you can go up a grade to be with me. that I should stop being with her. “
Van Der Watt said her happy moments on the mission were interrupted by the presence of her father, a man she described as physically and sexually abusive to her and her sister.
“I began to be abused by my own father. At home [at the mission] beat us unnecessarily. He especially took it out on my sister, sometimes we didn’t know why. He was a very violent man. I don’t know how to explain such a person. When you grow up with someone who threatens you every day, you dare to say anything to them. “
She said her abuse was getting worse and worse because she used to lock her sister in a room “and not feed her and sexually abuse her.”[ed] I”.
“That happened in our house. We never informed the mission or its leaders about the abuse that was taking place in the house because we were afraid of my father. If you even tried to say something, he said he would kill you, and I thought he would. “. . “
Van der Watt said the abuse experienced at home was not discussed.
“No one would dare to say a word to anyone. It was an unspoken rule we all lived by. We just have to endure it. This is how we spent our childhood years. We talked about running away, but we had a strong bond with our mother, who she was also abused: when she defended us, he turned against her. “
She said the mission school became her escape and rescue space.
“I had a lot of friends at school and I became quite popular because I could speak IsiZulu. Around 12, I wanted to tell my dad to stop and I was feeling worse and worse. I didn’t understand it, but there was something wrong.”
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Van Der Watt wanted to approach his father in person, but out of fear, he wrote a note instead that said, “Dad, can you stop doing what you’re doing to me? I don’t like it.”
I gave him the note and went to school. When I came back I didn’t see it. My mother sat on her bed and was crying, she said, ‘Anita, what’s going on?’ The times my father sexually abused me, my mother did not [around]. He did it in secret.
He said his mother reported the development to his spiritual advisor so his father could be approached “and talk about what’s going on.”
“The success in that endeavor I don’t know, but the abuse just stopped. I thought they obviously must have had some success. He didn’t explode or get mad. He had a depression for two weeks staring at the ceiling. Even if I walked into the room to Asking him if he wanted something to eat, he never answered.
“Shortly after, he decided to leave. We don’t know what happened. Personally, I love him like my father, but I didn’t love who he had become. From then on I kept going, kept going to school. There were no beatings in which it brings people to the ground. ”
During the questioning of the commissioners, he revealed that it was Stegen, Trevor Dahl and Friedel Stegen who spoke with his father.
She said she was unaware of their conversation. He was unable to say whether the church leadership reported the matter to authorities.
Van Der Watt claimed that the rumors about a strict dress code for women and that black children must have short hair were false.
“The mission has never required [us] wear a dress; they cut their hair, they do what they feel. If they come with long hair, they come with long hair, it’s a personal choice. At school, I’m sure there is a code of conduct, the school should respond to that. “
She said that children were disciplined according to the Bible.
“We live according to the Scriptures. The Bible teaches to discipline the child and not forgive the stick. We got hiding places, but it wasn’t like, you’re not giving enough hiding places – teachers gave hiding places when they thought there was no other way and we were getting too rebellious and stubborn. “
