Mlungisi Zondi is a 35-year-old male from KwaZulu Natal and currently lives in Mamelodi West, Pretoria. Zondi is famous on social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube through ‘The Agenda Network’, a short documentary and storytelling media outlet that focuses on socio economy, drug abuse, sex workers, and ex-convicts.
“I started the life of crime and drugs at an early age of eleven through peer pressure. I got in and out of jail for at least seven times as a juvenile. It started with regular street hijackings, shoplifting and local house breakings. The police never could make any charges stick because I was underage at the time. When I made it to 13 years, I started to graduate to break into houses around the suburbs robbing white people’s houses and eventually moved up to supermarket hijacking just before the age of 18 which is when I got arrested and unfortunately sentenced.
During my sentence in prison, I was raped by more than two men which I never got a chance to report to the authorities. One of the main reasons for this was because the prison warders slept in their allocated quarters at night, locking me inside with those that violated me and those guys always had knives with them, working as a unit of organised gangs. The prisons warders would often conduct and intervene in cases of people fighting over young boys whom they claim to be their wives, I felt like my life was in danger at every second. I went to bed thinking about what would happen to me on that particular night because, almost every day we would wake up and walk over blood or a dead body on a given day.
I found out that I got infected with HIV, that was when I decided to take my own life. I hung myself with torn bed sheets inside a toilet but woke up in hospital. When I came back to health, nurses wanted to know about what happened, but I had to keep my mouth shut, late on, I overdosed on different medication and failed again. That was the turning point of my life, I decided to give myself to the church and unified with those that want to reconstruct their lives.”
Zondi is now an ambassador, activist, and councillor of HIV and AIDS AND advocates against Gender-Based violence. He is also public speaker and author of two books, Life behind bars and My beautiful story: Living a blessed life with HIV.
– Photo/Supplied
Zondi Rape Victim In Schools
