A Cape Town man who paid traffickers to bring a girl from the Eastern Cape to be his wife has been sentenced in the Cape Town Regional Court.

The girl was 16 years old at the time.

Ayanda Wellington Vellem, 58, was convicted on charges of trafficking in persons for sexual purposes, failure to comply with the requirements of a valid customary marriage, rape, and assault.

The court heard the teenager, from Ngqamakhwe, was approached by a woman in 2012, who asked if she would be interested in getting married to a young man.

At the time, the 16-year-old, who was still in primary school and living with her grandmother, enquired the age of the man and was told he was 25.

She agreed and left with the woman who stated people would inform her grandmother of the marriage.

Vellem sent money to the woman to traffic the girl to Queenstown. In Queenstown, the girl met another woman and the sister of the woman who earlier approached her about being married to a man. The following day, she was dressed in makoti clothes, indicating that she was married but at the time she had not met the man she was marrying.

Vellem arrived two weeks later and the teenager was informed he was her husband. After seeing him, she approached the sister of the woman who approached her and stated she wanted to go home. She was ignored.

The court heard the teenager later saw Vellem’s identity document and discovered he was born in 1967 and 45 at the time – the same age as her mother.

During that evening, she was asked to take her ‘husband’ food, she went into the main house, the lights were switched off and Vellem called her to the bedroom. He instructed her to take off her clothing and raped her. She told him she was 16 and did not like what he was doing but he continued to rape despite her cries.

The following day she demanded to go home but was laughed at. Instead, she was told to pack her clothes as she was heading to Cape Town.

In Cape Town, she was taken to her ‘sister-in-law’s’ house in Khayelitsha where she would stay while Vellem stayed in Du Noon. The court heard Vellem would visit on weekends where he would rape her. She also told the court while in Khayelitsha she felt like she was being watched.

The girl knew she had an uncle in the Western Cape, and in an attempt to escape her captivity, she suggested to Vellem she wanted to go to Du Noon. She knew he’d get drunk and she could use the opportunity to contact her uncle.

The court heard Vellem’s drinking and rapes got worse in Du Noon to the extent the teen developed injuries in her private parts.

She went to a clinic in Khayelitsha where she met Nonkosi Ngingi, a nurse at the clinic who asked her age and why she was wearing makoti clothes. She then spoke up about being trafficked from the Eastern Cape to being married to a man the same age as her mother who repeatedly raped her. She also learnt that she contracted a sexually transmitted disease.

The nurse contacted the girl’s uncle and told him what happened and shared the girl’s cell phone number with him. Her uncle phoned her, and they met at a taxi rank. Her uncle took her to his house, and they later laid charges against the accused.

Vellem was arrested together with the woman who assisted him in trafficking the girl. They were all charged with abduction, trafficking in persons for sexual purposes, failure to comply with the requirements of a valid customary marriage and Vellem was charged with rape. The woman who approached the girl passed away during the trial and the other two women were acquitted of all the charges.

State Prosecutor Ruwayda Badrudeen called six witnesses and later argued the crimes committed by Vellem were horrendous and the enormity of it could hardly be over-emphasised. She further submitted to the court that the girl was a defenceless child who was subjected to abuse in the worst form.

Vellem was sentenced to life imprisonment for trafficking in persons for sexual purposes; nine months imprisonment for failure to comply with the requirements of a valid customary marriage, life imprisonment for rape, and six months imprisonment for assault.

The court ordered the sentences to run concurrently effectively sentencing him to life imprisonment. The court ordered his name be entered into the National Register of Sex Offenders and the National Child Protection Register. It further declared him unfit to possess a firearm.

robin.francke@iol.co.za

IOL

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