
Sexual abuse of children is an uncomfortable topic that many people choose to ignore in their everyday lives, but the new book My Piece of Sky by South African photojournalist Mariella Furrer shines a spotlight on the young victims, offering an unflinching look at this global epidemic.



The 700-page volume features gut-wrenching images documenting the country's great scourge and interviews with more than a dozen survivors who had been subjected to unthinkable acts of depravity.



Furrer, who was herself molested by a stranger as a 5-year-old, writes in the book’s foreword: ‘You lose your childhood really, your innocence is snatched away, and what little is left of that once-pure child is now being transformed into a sexual being, a child with knowledge of things way before her time.’



Heart to heart: Tinka Labuschagne, a senior education specialist, hugs a 10-year-old girl who has been sexually abused, raped and sodomised by her brother and two of his friends since age six

Too young: Professor Lorna Jacklin, a neuro-developmental pediatrician, begins a forensic examination on a sexually abused 2-and-a-half-year-old girl. Asked to lie down for the checkup, the toddler spread her legs as she had been taught to do by her tormentor

Creative outlet: A child's drawing at the Teddy Bear Clinic for Abused Children in Johannesburg

Hand in hand: A girl supports her friend, who was taken to General Hospital in Johannesburg in November 2002 after allegedly being raped during a school outing My Piece of Sky is the culmination of a decade-long journey for Furrer, which began in 2002 when she was hired by the American women’s magazine Marie Claire to take photographs for a story about infant rape in South Africa.

According to a 2009 report by Solidarity Helping Hand cited by Slate, South Africa leads the world in cases of sexual abuse targeting minors, with a child being raped every three minutes. The assignment struck a chord with Furrer, and she would spend the next 10 years interviewing and photographing victims, speaking to child services case workers and law enforcement agents, and researching the subject in depth.

The result of her work is a book, now available for purchase on Amazon, which features black-and-white photos, conversations, artwork and poetry documenting child sex abuse and its horrific impact on the lives of the victims, and the society at large.

Susanna, Venus and Dylan are among the 17 survivors who are interviewed in the book. To protect the identities of the children, Furrer changed their names.



Life's work: South African photojournalist Mariella Furrer spent a decade documenting the child sexual abuse epidemic by interviewing survivors and sex offenders, which resulted in her new 700-page book My Piece of Sky

Visible scars: The mutilated legs of Susanna, 24, who at age 8 was initiated into a satanic cult where she was subjected to rape, sodomy and bestiality

Chris is driven to the Police Child Protection Unit in Cape Town in March 2004 so that a social worker could try and get a statement from him as he was too scared to talk to the investigating officer. He never disclosed what happened, so the perpetrators never went to trial

Epidemic: A 2009 report stated that a child is being raped every three minutes in South Africa

Susanna was 8 years old when she was initiated into a satanic cult where initiation activities included sexual abuse, gang rape and bestiality. As a result of the trauma she experienced, Susanna developed dissociative identity disorder and has over 200 identities, many of whom are self-mutilators.

Furrer supplemented the story with an image showing the legs of the survivor, who is now 24 years old, covered in cuts.

Venus was also 8 when she was stabbed through her heart and lung, raped, sodomized, strangled and left for dead. The perpetrator was a family friend.

Venus hid overnight in the bushes, unable to cry for help because of the strangulation. She managed to pull herself onto the road in the morning where she was eventually discovered by a neighbor and taken to hospital. Dylan was sexually abused from a young age by two of his male teachers. He grew up to be a prostitute and a drug addict, stole cars, lived on the streets, and was in and out of jail. Traumatized: A young girl who was forced to play sexual games with a 9-year-old relative attempts to flee a doctor's room before a medical forensic examination at the Teddy Bear Clinic for Abused Children in Johannesburg

Crackdown: Task team members prepare to raid an apartment in Johannesburg in 2004 where they suspect children are being forced into prostitution

Gone: Volunteers from all over Pretoria are debriefed before beginning to search for Sheldean Human, a 7-year-old girl who vanished in February 2007 while playing with a friend At times he was able to turn things around, and for a while he was happily married, but it never lasted. In 2008, Dylan was arrested and told that he would spend a very long time in prison. The day of his arrest he hanged himself in his cell. Furrer’s book looks at the problem not only from the perspective of the survivors, social workers, police and prosecutors, but also from the side of pedophiles.

The photojournalist interviewed sex offenders to understand what motivated them and find out when they were first attracted to children.

Furrer's hope is that My Piece of Sky will start a worldwide conversation about the problem of child sex abuse and raise awareness of the devastating and long-lasting effects of sexual violence on the victims' lives.



Aftermath: A classmate of Sheldean Human weeps at her memorial in March 2007. The 7-year-old's decomposing body was found in a storm drain 15 days after her disappearance

Recovery mission: Inspector Stroppie Grobbelaar and his dog, Fargu, search nearby rivers and dams on the outskirts of Johannesburg for the body of a child named Kamo

Taking a stand: Protests outside the court where Andrew Jordaan, charged with 7-year-old Sheldean Human's murder, is scheduled to appear

Public outcry: Members of the ANC Women's League at the funeral of 3-year-old Sibongile Mokoena, who was raped and murdered in 2003 in Soweto

Victimized: Friends and relative comfort Lebohang Mokoena, the aunt of a girl named Sibongile, who went missing while in her care in November 2003 in Soweto