Underage niece ‘prostituted herself’, aunt testifies

The aunt of a girl who is accusing two Namibian women of pimping her out for sex, and a Pakistani national of raping her on several occasions in 2018, told Erongo regional magistrate Gaynor Poulton on Wednesday that her niece willingly had sex with men for remuneration.The aunt was the defence’s last witness in a matter in which Farhan Khatri is accused of raping the girl - who was 16 at the time - at his house at Walvis Bay, after his co-accused, Jaezuruka &#039;Beverly&#039; Kamongua and Melody Ortner (another aunt of the alleged victim) reportedly recruited her for sexual exploitation by Khatri.Khatri claims it never crossed his mind that the young woman he was interested in was a minor, while the two women claimed they were not involved in any recruiting of the minor – nor the allegation that she was raped.According to the aunt, her niece dressed like an adult and would go out at night and only come back the next morning.“She would dress like a mature woman; wear high heels and lashes and make-up,” she told the court. “This is how she presented herself – this was her dress code since she was a child. Not like a teenager.”Asked by deputy prosecutor-general Henry Muhongo how her niece worked with men, the aunt suggested she prostituted herself.“She loves men with money. She will sleep with them and get paid. She would not be with men who did not have money,” the aunt responded.Not ‘teenage innocence’Muhongo asked – several times – why wearing high-heels and make-up was a sign of maturity, considering that many girls also wear high-heels and make-up.The aunt agreed, but kept on stating that there was a difference - that the reason for her niece dressing up, and her subsequent behaviour, was different to what a teenager would do. A teenager might dress up and go out with friends for a while, but her niece dressed up to allegedly go out at night an come back the next morning, she claimed.In fact, according to the aunt, her niece would show her WhatsApp images (including nudes) and messages that suggested that she was involved ‘intimately’ with mature men – and that the communication would involve money or payment as part of the relationships.Although magistrate Poulton encouraged the witness to separate opinion from first impressions, the aunt maintained that her niece’s dress code insinuated more than teenage innocence.“When she dresses up and goes and comes back, then she would have money or shopping bags,” the woman told the court in response to questioning her claims that her niece was compensated for sex. “I see and read the messages myself. She is not employed, and yet she comes home with money and shopping bags.”‘Like a grown-up’What the witness could not answer was whether she knew that the communication she saw on her niece’s phone was in fact not from other men – and could possibly have been from the three people involved in allegedly pimping her out and exploiting her.The older woman also indicated that she had been present during some of the case’s proceedings.Asked by the three accused’s counsel “how old” her niece looked when she was dressed up, the aunt responded that she looked in her 20s – “like a grown-up”.The matter started when Kamongua showed a mobile video of the victim ‘partying’ at a club to Khatri. He was interested in meeting her. He eventually did, during which Kamongua and Muhongo were present. He allegedly had sexual relations with the victim on some occasions. He was in love with her, he said, but when he “could not give her what she wanted”, he and the two women were arrested.The matter was postponed to May for final submissions before judgment. Khatri remains in custody, as he is implicated in another matter in which he and a Erongo police officer are accused of bribing a state prosecutor to ‘sabotage’ his rape and sex trafficking case.

Underage niece ‘prostituted herself’, aunt testifies

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Namibian Sun 2025-03-04

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Underage niece ‘prostituted herself’, aunt testifies

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Namibian Sun 2025-03-04

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