Lucy Witts

Lucy witts

Lucy Witts

On Wednesday 21 June, we are joined by filmmaker Lucy Witts, who made the spine chilling documentary Dragan’s Lair. A documentary that resonated in the hearts of many South African’s, as the documentary is about rape culture and sexual grooming. A majority of South Africans have been affected by rape in one form or another, whether it was directly and it happened to you or indirectly, where it has happened to someone that you know.

South Africa has one of the worst sexual violence and violence against women statistics in the world, however it still feels like a taboo topic. Even though movements such as ‘Stop Rape Culture’ and ‘#menaretrash’ have been put into effect, it still seems as if many women are still being subjected to horrific incidences.

To fight this Lucy Witts shared her story of being sexually abused. Lucy had been repeatedly raped by her stepfather Dragan, whom the documentary is named after, since the age of 2 years old. When Dragan entered her mother's life he positioned himself as Lucy’s primary care giver, since her mother was always working Dragan would take Lucy to and from school, attend her sports events, and bath her nightly. This is a classic technique used by paedophiles to get close to their victims and have their victims be dependant on them.
The documentary sees her confronting him, now in her adult years about what he used to do to her as a child. Her questions are thought provoking

“When I asked him the question, how many girls have you raped since me, he said there's more than I can remember. So we are talking about a serial paedophile,” said Lucy.