The 14-year-old Khayelitsha girl who was gang-raped and humiliated when the video of the incident went viral, managed to pass Grade 7 and waits as time nears toward the start of high school.

The girl’s story of horror was made public in October last year after the cellphone video footage showing her being raped by four teenage boys (while another six encouraged their behaviour) was distributed and viewed among the primary school students at the school she attended. The footage was also posted on social media network platforms, and the video shows the girl pleading with the two boys to let her go home. She had also revealed that she had been gang-raped before by six boys in December 2011. Afraid of one of the guys because he belonged to the Vato gang in Khayelitsha H-Section, she “could not cry out loud,” for help.

The girl kept the incident away from her 74-year-old foster mother since she was worried that she would be punished for going out with boys. She was also afraid of people not believing her. It was only until the cellphone footage became public that her foster mother was alerted of the second attack. The rape was then reported to the police, with the four boys then arrested on charges of rape. Still under the age of 18, they remain in their parents’ custody. They are to appear in the Khayelitsha Magistrate’s Court on February 21.

The rapists’ girlfriends have threatened to stab the victim for reporting the incident to the police, and have accused her of lying about the rape. Pupils in the corridors of the school she attended would also chant, “No, no, no… let me go home,” mimicking her pleas on the video footage. “Every day I tried not to think about it, but it’s hard because I see them almost every day when I’m visiting home.”

Her friends have suggested that she drop out of school, but she has refused to heed their advice and instead focus on her schooling path. “I cannot let them take away my education,” she said.