Melinda Ferguson, features editor at TRUE LOVE exclusively sat down with Bridget Masinga, one of SA’s most well-loved and recognised zalebs, to talk about how she was sexually abused as a child.

Bridget begins to tell TRUE LOVE of the memory that she had blocked out for so many years; of how she remembers living in a flat in Durban and a man without trousers when she was six years old.

“I was touched that Bridget felt ready to talk about a deeply painful area of her life, a secret she’d never shared with any publication. For a country with some of the highest rape and sexual abuse stats in the world, in South Africa, big names have been eerily silent on the issue,” says Ferguson.

According to the Medical Research Council, more than a third of girls have experienced sexual violence before the age of 18, with 40% of all victims who report rape to the police being under 18. Ferguson says that statistics can be cold, removed, inhuman. It’s a story like Bridget’s, a story with a face, that brings this reality home.

As is so often the case, Bridget’s abuse didn’t stop after it was discovered. The abuse carried on behind closed doors. “What I really needed was to be extracted from the situation and removed from this man. As a way of coping, I hung onto a little mantra: I will not be damaged by this. I will take control of my own happiness. Move on, move on,” Bridget explains.

Bridget found ways to cope- laugh, joke, be an extrovert- anything to take the attention away from the small, damaged part of her that was buried inside. “I made a pact with myself that I wasn’t going to grow up angry, hurt and lessened by this experience,” she says.

Bridget felt that there was no time like now to bring secrets to the light. “I finally gave myself permission to actually say, ‘yes, I own this, this is what happened’. And now I‘ve found my voice, I’m beginning to feel free.”

Ferguson says that she knows with the courage that Bridget has shown in sharing her experience, some of you will read this and be brave enough to seek your own healing. That is why Bridget had to tell her story.

To read the full story of Bridget, get your October issue of TRUE LOVE on sale now.

Bridget’s image via Facebook/BridgetMasingaArtist