Making a Difference

 

Princess Moonbeam's Story

Before she could crawl, speak or even lift her head, five-month-old Princess Moonbeam was victim to the most atrocious of crimes. On December 2, 2001, in the heart of a Johannesburg slum, in an old cinema converted into a decrepit rooming house, two men used a broken bottle to cut the little girl, raped her and then left her for dead. Her mother, an alcoholic prostitute, found her baby wailing in pain and bleeding profusely on the urine-soaked bed on which she had been turning tricks just a few hours earlier.

Police were immediately called and the crime scene was secured. Princess Moonbeam was rushed to Johannesburg General Hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery, the first of three, to repair her perineum, torn from vagina to anus.

The sight of the little baby’s injuries and the context of her violation was too much for the medical team. So distraught was the anesthetist, she informed the lead surgeon she couldn’t perform her duties. The other nurses and doctors completed their duties while wiping tears from their eyes and suppressing the revolt in their stomachs.

The Johannesburg Police Child Protection Unit was called in to investigate, but even experienced detectives had difficulty remaining professionally detached. The lead investigator was so traumatized by the team’s findings she later had to take extended stress leave.

Charges were laid against two men, but they were cleared by DNA evidence, the unreliability of the witnesses, and the inability of the victim to testify. To this day, Princess Moonbeam’s rapists remain free.

Soon after Princess Moonbeam was admitted to hospital Claudia Ford, an African-American development specialist based in Johannesburg, received a telephone call from a journalist friend who was covering the story for an American television news network to come to the hospital. The moment Claudia laid eyes on Princess Moonbeam and was told of the rape, she decided to adopt her. Three days after that first meeting, Princess Moonbeam was lying on an enormous bed in Claudia’s comfortable home in one of the city’s affluent suburbs.