Bernika Mokaneng couldn’t talk but communicated with her eyes and through gestures. She always smiled. She loved to play with children and Selina remembers growing up on the farm in North West having fun, playing with her older sister. Family gatherings at Christmas were always happy times.
Bernika had lived at the Life Esidimeni Hospital in Randfontein for many years and was moved to the Takalani Children's Home. Selina only found her sister two weeks after she had been taken there. When she found Bernika, her clothes were dirty and she was wearing someone else’s shoes. The skirt she had on was very short.
‘She was wearing a long-sleeved top, even though I know my sister hated long sleeves.’ When Selina lifted the sleeve, she noticed bruises everywhere. Bernika kept covering her face with a tracksuit top and seemed to indicate that she had been raped.
Things looked so bad that Selina decided at the end of the month to go and take her sister out. But the Friday before she was going back to Takalani, the matron called her. She informed Selina that her sister had died the night before.
‘She was rude,’ Selina remembers. ‘She told me that they would only keep the body until Monday, and I must bring an undertaker. We buried my sister the next week.
‘That picture of how I saw Bernika the last time – that is what stays with me.’
© Life Esidimeni | South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) | SECTION27 | In cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Cape Town
All rights reserved.
Photographs copyrighted © Mark Lewis. For permission to use contact Mark Lewis.
If you would like to use material and stories from this website for awareness or education purposes please contact SADAG and credit © SADAG
Website designed & maintained by A-web