SOUTH AFRICA – A former member of controversial church Kwasizabantu Mission has testified of how she witnessed a boy being burnt between the toes so that he can have a taste of hell.
The commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Commission) continued to hear evidence pertaining to atrocities at the Kwasizabantu Mission.
Author behind the book Mission of Malice, Erica Bornman, who grew up in Kwasizabantu Mission in the 1980s, said she witnessed members of the church put toilet paper between a boy’s toes and set them on fire so he can have a taste of hellfire.
“A boy had toilet paper put between his toes and it was set on fire so that he can get a taste of hellfire,” she said to the commission on Wednesday.
The hearings began in 2020 but were delayed by Covid-19 and legal issues that were raised by the church.
Bornman told the commission she ended up living in Kwasizabantu with her mother permanently after her father died. Her father was meant to become a principal at the mission’s school.
“At the age of 10 I started wetting my bed because I was terror-struck. We witnessed public beatings and anyone could give you a hiding,” she said.
Bornman said one of her friends, aged eight at the time, stole something and she was called in and threatened with having her hand cut off because that is what the Bible preaches.
“They brought in a butcher knife and they said a beating was not enough. All the children were gathered around,” she said. “I did not question anything because everything they did was set to be ordained by God.”
She said little children were shown videos of people being burnt alive to terrify them of going to hell.
“They would show us movies of burning hell of graphic depictions of people burning in hell, we believed this was real footage,” she said.
Bornman said they were not allowed television or radio to shield them from the outside world. She said black children were treated as less than white children. “There was no integration with the black children. We [white children] had no teachers and we studied by correspondence with Damelin,” she said.
She said black children were forced to keep their hair short and not allowed to braid it while white children were allowed to grow theirs.
She said men were “told by God” on who they should marry and that interracial marriages were not allowed. “God had not once ordained an interracial marriage [at Kwasizabantu]. When asked about it they said a springbok does not mix with another antelope,” said Bornman.
She also said she was sexually groomed by her counsellor who would touch her inappropriately. When she decided to leave she said she was cursed out by founder Erlo Stegen. “Erlo said, ‘I now place God’s curse on your life’,” she said.
The hearings continue.
