Tumi Morake on rape ordeal: I carried the shame as if I asked this guy to do it

Tumi reflected on how she lost her virginity at 15 years old to rape and the trauma of the incident.

“It is a frightening thing when you realise someone is going to take something you said they can’t have. Anyone who has had their cellphone stolen from them, their car hijacked will know to a degree what I mean when I say that rape is someone taking something without your permission.

“I wrote about that because I just felt that the focus is always on the victim. It is never  ‘this guy raped this woman’. It is always ‘this woman was raped by…’ ‘This woman was…’ So victims carry the shame. I carried the shame as if I asked this guy to do this to me. As if I invited it on myself. That kind of language has to stop. The only time the focus should be on the victim is when the victim goes: ‘I want to share how I felt or how the experience was for me.'”

She went on to explain how the pain of a friend’s attempted suicide and the death of several others took their toll on her.

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