My Story Part Three

One day Dolf phoned his parents while we were having an argument. I went outside when they arrived because I didn't feel up to arguing with them too. They left soon and when I went back in, I discovered that they had taken Lili with them. I ran to the police station and begged them for help but they wouldn't listen. I phoned my parents and they contacted someone at the police station who phoned Dolf's parents and told them to bring Lili there. When I got there, I took Lili and tried to walk out the door but a woman there told me that I have to talk to Dolf's parents first. I just wanted to get away, so I treid to push my way through the door but a police officer pulled me back so hard that it left bruises on my arm. The woman threatened to open a case of child abuse against me if I didn't talk to Dolf's parents, I felt helpless. There I was being forced into an argument after they didn't even help me when I reported that these people took my child.

I still remember the nights I used to put Lili in bed, how she cried and I promised her that I was going to take her away from all of that, then something happened.

Dolf started shoving me around one day while I had Lili in my arms, I begged and shouted at him to stop but that made him even more angry, until he finally threw me against the wall. I got up and ran away. I applied for a protection order against him. Lili had a bad bruise on her forehead from when he threw against the wall. My dad asked an ex-colleague of his if I could stay there for a while.

Dolf was clever. He went to the ACVV and got a social worker to work on our case. This social worker was the first of many and she opened the original file in which the truth about what was going on at the time was specified. She convinced me to go back to Dolf and promised me that she would help us work through our problems.

Less than a month after that, another argument led me to contact my parents to come and take me and Lili away. I took Lili and we moved to Pretoria to live with my parents on 13 October 2001, two days before what would have been our 2nd anniversary.