WINDHOEK, JAN 30 – In recent days, Paulina Wakudumo, has conjured up a social media storm after she ‘came out’ and accused her former coach at Noordgrens Secondary School, Henk Bronner, of being obsessed about her, resulted in him raping her during her school years. In a phone interview with Namibia Daily News, Wakudumo minced no words as she claimed that Bronner would conduct his volleyball sessions until such a time he saw fit and then carpool the girls home, dropping them off one after the other.
In the explosive interview, she added that Bronner was “obsessed” with her and even went to the extent of buying a house for the sole purpose of living close to her. But how did this all start?
In 2016, Henk Bronner (L) rececived a Recognition Award from SCORE Namibia. (Facebook)
“I was 12 years old when this all started and this is when Henk Bronner started working at the school. I was so much into athletics and that’s how he became my coach. I was a sprinter at the school. When he started at the school, he became the sports coach because he loved doing sports. He was known for doing athletics and volleyball. So, this is how he became very close to me through sports,” she said.
“It started on the school grounds. Whenever we were done playing volleyball, it would be late and he would tell us to play until the time he decides to stop then he would drop us off home. He had this idea of dropping students off. He would always tell me to sit in the front and that’s when he started touching my leg and getting comfortable with me.”
She narrated that because of their everyday meetings, she developed a trust, adored him and looked at him like a father figure.
“He came over to our house, met my parents. He was really nice to my parents and everyone else. He was the only person that I was close to.”
Being so close, she never thought anything about when he would allegedly touch her, and because she had never had boyfriend, she could neither distinguish right from wrong at the time.
“When he started touching me, I never thought it wrong at the time that I was young. My parents had also never spoken to me about sex or a relationship and I had never had a boyfriend in my life, so this was also new to me and I never really knew if it was right or wrong.’
In the interview, she suspected that teachers knew about what was going on and some became over protective of her. She also believes that her parents knew about the abuse and hence they had to decide to make her switch schools to St Boniface, which came with its own repercussions.
“I come from a good home. I was raised to be positive and optimistic by my parents. Everybody was overprotective about me. The teachers could see and were suspecting Henk for sexually abusing me. If ever he saw anyone close to me, he was always there. I didn’t have the chance or space to open up to anyone.”
This reporter asked why, if the teachers and members of the community knew about this, they would keep it quiet and most of all why, if her parents knew, they did not report to the police or line ministry involved.
“My parents opted to transfer me. My parents knew it but they never asked me about it. That was the only reason why they wanted to take me to St Boniface. I think my parents knew that if they asked me about it that I would deny it. They knew how close I was to Henk. Also, I was in denial. I only started realising that what happened to me was wrong and my past started traumatising me when I relocated schools.”
At the time of her alleged abuse, she said Bronner was a married man and made the claim that, “part of the reason why she (his wife) divorced him was because she realised that Henk was too obsessed about me.”
Wakudumo would go on to migrate to Canada to further her education, which was an eight-year process, prior to her return in February 2018. She claimed that even during that time, Bronner sought to reconnect, sending her friendship requests which she blocked, and that even when she returned, he was stalking her.
“When I lived in Canada, I suppressed my past memories. When I came back, my past immediately began haunting me. He somehow knew I was back. He had this illusion in his mind that someday if I come back, I was going to be his girlfriend or future wife. He studied my every move. He also sent me a friend request but I blocked him. He saw me every day and was stalking me and made my life miserable. I was devastated.
“The more he stalked me, I started thinking about what happened to a point where if I visited a friend or was somewhere, he would make sure he would park and stand outside his car and greet me. If I went to sports at a stadium he would always be in my face. At some point I decided to greet him back because I became curious about my past and I wanted some answers.”
It was during this period that Wakudumo began investigating her past, and hoping to prevent it from happening to other girls and so she decided to meet the latest group of girls Bronner was mentoring.
“He introduced me to girls that he was coaching (volleyball). The first time I saw the girls at school I was so surprised because it was a lot of girls and I noticed that the way he was touching them, he would spank their buttocks and I noticed that immediately but kept it to myself. I could see that about 5 or 6 of them he must have been abusing them because of the way they were comfortable around and with him. It was only him and maybe two or three boys.”
Her mind made up, she decided to open up to somebody, and this was her pastor. Over a four-hour session, she outlined to the last detail how she was (allegedly) raped by her coach, and that she noticed similarities between the way he conducted himself with her when she was young and how he conducted himself with the current batch of girls in his volleyball team.
“She (the pastor) told me we had to talk to the authorities. We went to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare because this also freaked her out. I sat down with them and they listened to my story. I was very afraid of opening up a case. For me, justice would be served if he was removed immediately as a teacher, especially for those girls that there was a potential of him abusing.”
What seemed like a positive turn of events for her did not yield much positive in terms of results. For starters, after a year, there seemed to be no activity going on, and she claims that some of the police officers that were meant to carry out their duty were possibly bribed.
“Then I was thinking about court, going up and down. But in the end, I opened up a case, and I followed procedures. I was always in and out of their office and the case was not going anywhere. Within a year, I realised that a lot of cops were actually getting bribes to go away. I studied a lot of police officers and I think I am good at observing and I did some research about police officers I was dealing with and heard stories about how they were corrupted and how they got away with other cases.”
As of Sunday, obtaining the case number from Wakudumo has also yielded no fruition as yet. However, when asked if she was sure of these allegations against civil servants, Bronner included, and why she would resort to social media and risk a potential nuclear character-defamation lawsuit, let alone cyber-bullying, she maintained that this was the only way justice would be achieved.
“This is what inspired me to go on social media. Imagine I came back in 2018 and until now. Nothing has happened. I told them that one day when I have the strength, I am going to voice out to the public and that they will get into trouble. Justice for me now has to happen via social media. There are a few cops that called me these last few days. But if they want action, they need to remove him as a teacher. For the first time, I will use my last name as power. For the first time I don’t feel vulnerable and if anyone wants to challenge me, let them do so. I am doing this for the other girls. I don’t want other girls to experience what I went through. If I never came back to Namibia, I would have neve opened up. For some time, I never wanted to come back but I had to.”
To this day, she believes that if all had happened in Windhoek, it would have been nipped in the bud. She feels that a part of society failed her by allowing a man who is not a parent/guardian to walk around town holding young girls’ hands as if it is normal. In addition, she believes race to have had a part to play in this particular case.
“You know this guy is a white male. I think perhaps this is the reason why this case was also challenging. How does this happen whereby he is so comfortable to be holding a girl’s hand in town and nobody says anything about it. The community itself should have questioned this very situation. This means that we are normalising rape. I mean if this was in Windhoek, I suppose it would never had happened. People in Rundu are intelligent, but then I think when it comes to voicing out such issues, the people in Rundu are not confident enough or afraid or something.”
When contacted for comment regarding these allegations, Coach Henk Bronner believes that there are no doubts about his trust issues and that he would not be talking too much.
“She is making a lot of allegations on social media. For example, she is stating that I raped her when she was 12 years old. She was 12 years old in 2001 and that time I was working at Coca Cola. I wasn’t involved in school and didn’t know her existence. But if I reveal things right now, then she can change her story. I am going to play my cards close to my chest.”
“I am categorically denying all those things! Not forcefully or willingly did any sexual things take place. The thing is that I can tell you a bunch of stuff that would make your hair rise.”
He believes that Wakudumo might be trying to coax her into having a public spat and then she would like to take that to her advantage. When asked if he had thought about laying legal charges, he said he had thought about it but had received advise and decided to wait.
A picture taken during a matric farewell in which Henk Bronner is tagged by one of his former protege’s on Facebook
“I was advised to wait until this thing runs its course and after the findings, then I can use all these things. Some of those pictures that she has taken are from my Facebook account. They include the smaller sister, the middle one and the oldest one. So, I am such an evil guy that I took the whole family on? And then post those pictures on my Facebook account? There’s another teacher where I am at the Matric farewell. As a teacher, the students ask me to stand in their pictures. They are paying for those pictures.”
He maintained that there are over 400 kids who go through his hands as a sports person and this meant he was a trustworthy person. When asked what he thought might be the cause for this, he said that he was scratching his head over and over about it.
“I have no idea. I have been thinking myself into oblivion but I don’t get what she wants to get out of this. According to her claim, she was so traumatised when she came from Canada and we don’t know what happened to her there.”
He then alleges that the first person she visited when she came back from Canada was him.
“If she is so traumatised why did she come to me? I am living with my mother currently, so which means that my house is off-limits. She is trying to sway public opinion into her favour, that is what I think. And she is raiding my Facebook page. If you were a rapist would you have your victims on your Facebook page? I don’t want to fight like this and for that reason alone, I would rather keep quiet and my story will eventually come out,” he added.
“I can assure the public that the kids are completely safe with me. If the parents have any doubt, I do not train the kids alone anymore. I have people around me. Currently, the kids are playing but I am not at school because there are other things I am busy with. There is people training them now. I don’t do those things alone anymore because I realised that I am opening myself up for criticism. You know, the sad part is that the kids whom have been mentioned are brilliant sports people and their name is going to be tarnished with mine. Their achievements are nullified because someone has an axe to grind with me. But I will not stoop that low and when the time is right I will address the issue.” – musa@namibiadailynews.info
