“Dear Santa, please can I live by Bobbi Bear forever … please also make all my pain go away before Christmas.”
This heartbreaking plea from an eight-year-old girl in KwaZulu-Natal captures the reality facing dozens of children who turn to Operation Bobbi Bear for safety every year.
The child penned her letter shortly after she was removed from her home, where her father allegedly raped her. She is now in the care of Operation Bobbi Bear, a human rights organisation in Amanzimtoti that runs a rapid-response service for sexually-abused children.
Speaking to TimesLIVE, Bobbi Bear director Eureka Olivier said the number of children in their care over the festive season changes daily.
“We’re an emergency organisation. The police, hospitals and the community bring children to us or we’re called out to fetch them from different areas. Some stay for one night. Some stay three nights. Some stay a week. It all depends on the social workers and also the arrest of the perpetrator in the family,” she said.
When a child has been raped at home, returning them to that environment is not an option, she said.
“After the medicals and police statements, the child comes to Bobbi Bear and stays safely with us until a permanent plan can be made. We work with social workers to reunite them with family, maybe an aunt or uncle in another province who had no idea the abuse was happening.”
Olivier said her eyes filled with tears when she read the eight-year-old’s letter.
“I look in her eyes and I see the real raw pain of a childhood ripped away from her at the tender age of eight years. We can never ‘fix’ what he did to her. We can make sure justice is done and we can certainly keep her safe, love her and remind her that what he did to her was not her fault, she did nothing to deserve this.”
She said while families excitedly plan Christmas lunch and wrapping of presents, Bobbi Bear has to plan how many rape bags need to be packed, check the food cupboards and fridges and see how low its stock is.
At the moment 14 children are living on the property. “At least 10 of them will be here on Christmas Day. They won’t be going anywhere,” she said.
Olivier said the festive season brings a predictable rise in violence. “Every year, without fail, we see an increase in rape and physical abuse. There’s domestic violence in the home, there’s alcohol flowing, Christmas parties, work parties. Parents get drunk, go home and there are fights. It’s always the children who suffer.”
Food is my gold. We always need food and our cupboards and fridges are really empty. It gets embarrassing that I’m always begging. We’re not government-funded so we self-sustain our home
— Eureka Olivier, Operation Bobbi Bear director
While the need is constant, the organisation’s most urgent shortage is food. “Food is my gold. We always need food and our cupboards and fridges are really empty. It gets embarrassing that I’m always begging. We’re not government-funded so we self-sustain our home,” said Olivier.
With children coming and going at all hours, the basics vanish quickly. “Any food a house with children needs, we need. Long-life milk, cereal, two-minute noodles, margarine, toilet paper, sandwich spreads. We sit at hospitals for hours doing medicals. Kids get hungry. Same at police stations. So food, food, food is my gold,” explained Olivier.
She said supermarket vouchers are hugely helpful. “If we get an abandoned baby late at night, we can go across the road for nappies and formula. We can’t keep thousands of rands’ worth of every kind of nappy or formula in stock.”
Every child who comes in receives a rape bag and a Bobbi Bear teddy. “In the bag are sanitary pads, tissues, a brown paper evidence bag, colouring pens and pencils. Children often draw scenes that help us understand what happened. There are also plasters, snacks, little cold drinks and gloves. When we get a call, we grab a rape bag and a bear and off we go. Everything in that bag is for the child.”
Olivier said the work is heartbreaking but necessary. “We’re activists. We fight for the rights of these children and we follow up on dockets. We make sure there’s justice for these kids because there is nothing worse than a child coming through our gate covered in dry blood and semen and we have to process that child. It breaks our heart. A piece of our heart breaks every single time. But we know this is something we all dedicated our lives to — and most of us have been here for 20-odd years, even longer.
“This is what we do on a daily basis. We try to do our best to give every child justice and to make sure that they’ve got a voice, that they can know that they can tell somebody that rape is happening in their home, grooming or any type of abuse. We will listen and we will help that child.”
TimesLIVE
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