I was repeatedly raped by TB Joshua, forced to give 5 abortions — Namibian journalist

A television presenter with the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NMB), Jessica Kaimu, is among a group of women who claim to have been abused by cult leader TB Joshua.

Kaimu in a BBC report, alleged she was 17 when Joshua raped her after becoming a ‘disciple’.
“I was screaming and he was whispering in my ear that I should stop acting like a baby… I was so traumatised, I couldn’t cry,” she says.

Jessica says this encounter was repeated again and again, throughout the five years she spent as a disciple.

Her account mirrors that of other women who spoke to the BBC, and also of accounts by four of Joshua’s male personal servants who were given the job of clearing up the physical evidence of this abuse.

According to the BBC, many of the details of interviewees’ accounts are too graphic to publish, adding “they include multiple first-hand accounts of women being stripped naked, and raped with objects – including one woman who says it happened to her twice before the age of 15.”

“It was so painful, he violated me,” the woman, who asked to remain anonymous, says. “Words cannot properly express it. It scarred me for life.”

A number of interviewees who say they were raped and became pregnant by Joshua, explain how they were also then given forced abortions inside the compound – in an area known as the “medical department” or “clinic”.

“It would all be done in secrecy,” says Sihle, a South African former disciple, who says she had three forced abortions in the church.

“You are given a concoction to drink and you get sick. Or they put these metal pieces in your vagina and they extract whatever. And you don’t know whether they’re [accidentally] pulling out of your womb.”

Sihle wept throughout her interview, as did Jessica who says she was given five forced abortions.

Bisola says she witnessed “dozens” of abortions during her 14 years inside the church. At times, she says she would climb to the highest floor of the compound and cry, begging God to save her.