Mother of gender-based violence victim from Atlantis

Liezel Duiter, who wished to be identified, shared the story of her daughter who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend and the father of her child. Liezel’s daughter had endured abuse by her ex-boyfriend on multiple occasions before the incident but never reported it “because she was a very quiet, to herself, type of person.” When the ex-boyfriend found out she had a new partner, he decided to confront the man and “interrogated the boyfriend about my daughter.” A fight broke out between the men, and the ex-boyfriend stabbed the other man, who had to be hospitalized due to his injuries.

“He, the perpetrator, then came to my house the next day to tell me what happened and saying that he didn’t mean to as he doesn’t know how to stab someone, never in his life did he do something like this before… My husband then took him to the police station to hand himself over, but when we got to the police station, a police woman told him [the perpetrator] to leave his address… because my daughter’s boyfriend has not yet been released from hospital and that they are waiting for the J88 form [medical examination] from the doctor that the police needs to fill in. And only then will they go and pick him [the perpetrator] up.”

The following Monday, only a week after this initial incident, Liezel was in hospital for treatment.

“I wasn’t even there for 15 minutes when I saw them pushing my daughter in on a stretcher because he had stabbed her… Her stab wounds were also strategic, on places where he previously said he didn’t stab the boyfriend because it would cause someone’s death…”

Her daughter passed away at the hospital from her wounds. Liezel still questions why the police did not act after the first stabbing incident to protect her daughter and prevent her death.

“They could’ve done way better because if they had arrested him in the first place, she would have still been able to be with her child today.”