Family History:
Zawadi’s parents divorced when she was very young because she cannot even remember how it happened. She found herself living with her father in Magu and started going to school whilst living with her father who was married to another wife. When Zawadi was in STD two (2003), her father fought with her step mother to the point that Zawadi’s father was taken to Magu hospital for treatment. Whilst in the hospital, his wife (Zawadi’s step mother went back to her family, so Zawadi went with her as well. Zawadi’s brother heard of the problem so she decided to go take Zawadi. She managed to move Zawadi from that family and they stayed together in Isandula village-in Magu District. Again Zawadi’s mother was married to another man. Zawadi had to go back into STD one because her performance was so poor.
Life seemed ok though not very good until this man, Zawadi’s step father tried to have sex with Zawadi. This happened when they were coming from harvesting some rice in a village next to Magu and her step father had carried her on a bicycle. Suddenly he stopped on the bushes and told Zawadi that if she was not accepting  to have sex with him, he would kill her. He had a knife with him so he forced Zawadi and raped her for the first time. After two days, he raped her again in the middle of the night when everybody was deeply asleep. He walked into Zawadi’s bedroom and dragged her into another room where he raped her again for the second time. All this happened in February 2008. The next day, in the evening he told her that today I will be coming again, so Zawadi could not bear it anymore, she decided to tell her mother no matter whether she will be killed or not. The mother could not believe it at the first time until she asked two girls who were in the room the night Zawadi was dragged by their father. They could not say it before because he told them that they will be killed if they mentioned it to their mother.

When the mother was assured that her husband had abused her daughter, she asked her husband why he could dare to do such a nasty act. When he found out that his wife knows, the same night he locked his wife in the house and took some poison and ran away. Later the wife realized that she had been locked in, so she shouted and the girls came to open the door for her, she later saw some liquid on the floor which smelt very badly so they suspected that her husband might have taken some poison.

Zawadi’s mother together with some neighbours tried to find him and as they were in the process, he showed up and fell down. They took him to hospital in Magu and after two days, he was discharged. When he came back home, he told his wife that he did not want to see Zawadi in his family otherwise he will kill them. Zawadi’s mother took her to her sister (Zawadi’s aunt) where she was badly treated. She was told to sleep on the floor, with no bed sheet, sometime no food until she decided to tell her mother about the situation. When her mother came to ask her sister, the sister was very furious and said take your daughter from here. I feed her for nothing!  This lady – Zawadi’s mother had no other alternative rather than going to social welfare to seek some advice. The social officers addressed her to Bethany along with a letter confirming that she is deprived, underprivileged and that she really needs help.

Her father is already dead when he was fishing, he drowned. Her mother is struggling a lot with life because her husband is making a lot of troubles every time. She is not settled.

Here she is today, she was very sad and unhappy when she first came to Bethany, but now she is getting along very well and has settled in ok.

Report By Eliada Bujiku ( Tanzanian team member)