Isobella and I are picking out bikinis in a factory shop when radio Good Hope blares out a news report about another nine-year-old girl raped and murdered on the Cape Flats. My stomach turns. I glance at Isobella to see if she's overheard the news.
Luckily she's holding up a bright pink swimming costume, her eyes bright and happy. I smile, but it's forced. All that's going through my head are images of what that nine-year-old's last moments alive must have been like. My daughter is 7, just two years younger than the news report victim, her slight body innocent and fragile. What kind of person would tear into the flesh of a child? What is going through his mind? The thoughts are like torture, and I feel leaden and depressed.
"I can't do this anymore" has become a silent mantra over the past few years. I can't cope with baby rape. I don't want to live in a country with the highest baby rape rate in the world. I don't want to be here.
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