Raped while young and infected with HIV
“I had no choice, he had sex with me,” laments Herlyn Auiras, a survivor of abduction and three rape ordeals. At 16, Auiras together with her friend were abducted and smuggled into South Africa.

The drama began innocently enough when Auiras and a friend planned to attend a concert in Windhoek City under the pretext of visiting the friend’s grandfather. Money being a challenge, the two girls accepted a ride from a couple of Namibia truck drivers.

The drivers, originally from South Africa, assured Auiras and her friend that they would bring them back to Namibia on the return trip. “At the immigration checkpoint they covered us with blankets and passed the border into South Africa,” recalls Auiras.

“At Jo’burg, one of the drivers wanted to have sex with me. He threatened to hurt me if I didn’t give in,” she remembers.

Auiras begged the driver to wear a condom. Although he reluctantly agreed, the condom broke during the rape. He warned Aurias against going to the police noting that she was in South Africa illegally.

The two young women existed for several days without food or a place to sleep. “Any time we asked to go home, he said next week!’

Finally able to escape the truck drivers’ grasp, Aurias and her friend met someone who appeared to be a Good Samaritan. The man offered to find them accommodations in a friend’s house. As it turns out, they were lured into a trap by the very man they supposed would save them.

As days went on, Aurias experienced urinal pains and virginal discharge. “I never knew it was a sexually transmitted infection.”

They had no choice but to comply with the demands of their host, including attending nightclubs with the man. One night at a club, the man tried to force Aurias to have sex with him. When she declined, “he beat me with a wooden bar.” She escaped with only her clothes, but soon realized she had no choice but to go back to the house.

Soon she became so ill that her “host” had to take her to the hospital. While there she was diagnosed with HIV. “When the doctor said I had AIDS I wanted to commit suicide,” she remembers. Because of the illness, the man no longer wanted her in his home and eventually the young woman made her way back to Namibia with the help of police.

With treatment Aurias began to feel better. Even still, it took her a year and a half to disclose her status to her parents.

In time, Aurias found the Wawis Buy multi-purpose centre in Namibia. The people there helped transform her life by welcoming her and training her in counseling and palliative care.

Recognizing that her story could have had a horrific ending, Aurias is grateful to be alive and able to help other young women. Today she is the ambassador of Hope for Churches United Against HIV and AIDS (CUAHA). Advocating in churches on human trafficking, sexual abuse and all forms of human rights abuse, Aurias’ powerful story serves as both a warning to and an example for youth.

Her advice to young people is very straightforward: “We have the power to make choices after first weighing consequences.”

The United Nation Children Fund (UNICEF) estimates that some 1.2 million children are trafficked worldwide every year.