AT AGE 60, Priscilla Musonda Schaufelberger vividly remembers the years of adult slavery at the hands of her father, who fathered her four children.
Her long journey of adult abuse started when She was six years old as her father started doing it with her father with the full knowledge of her mother.In an exclusive interview, she narrates that as if to prepare her for the defilement that she would endure for years, her parents would make her watch them doing it.
Then later, her father started doing it with her. He did not just end there. He married her secretly, but of course it was no secret for her mother and other close members of the family. She became her father’s fourth wife at the age of 23.
Recalling how the adult abuse all started in 1965, she says, “I was very young and innocent. But I can still remember how I was forced to watch them.The worst part is that everyone close to me in my life, including my mother, allowed it to happen.
When I was 11 years old, my mother’s family knew that I was being abused. So my mother’s older brother, who was a policeman living in Mansa, came to our house and took me with him.
She recalls how happy she was to be rescued by her uncle, albeit for a short while only.
“Dad sent mum to come and pick me by aeroplane. She came with two air tickets – one for me and the other one for herself,” Priscilla shares.
When she returned home, the abuse continued. To cover his dirty footpath, Priscilla’s father never allowed her to associate with friends.
“When I returned home (From Mansa), my father was furious. He later took me to a faraway place somewhere in Kafue where I was locked up for a long time. There I became my father’s slave,” she says.
Then the worst was to happen. At age 19, she conceived and had a child for her father. She had another child for him at the age of 23. When Priscilla had the second child, her father decided to marry her, with the consent of her mother, although he had three other wives.
A year after having the second child, she had the third one at the age of 24, while her fourth child was born when she was 27 years old. Two of her children were girls, and the other two boys.
“After my father declared marriage with me, I had two more children with him. No one (in the family) opposed. Dad started renting me a house where I used to stay with my children and other family members. He would pretend that he was coming to see the children, while in the actual sense, he was coming for me. And I was not to refuse him because he used to beat me,” Priscilla recalls.
Despite the situation she was in, Priscilla finished school through correspondence.
Her predicament made her bitter with everyone, including her children.
“I used to hate my children, I used to beat them a lot. It was the only way of venting out my anger. I was only emotionally attached to one daughter because she was defiled by a relative when she was eight months old,” she said.
She laments that despite his callous behaviour, her father was a respected photojournalist who was working for a public media house.
In 1990, Priscilla could not take it anymore. She fled home to go and live on the streets of Lusaka. This was after eight years of marriage to her father.
In her eight years of marriage she tried to run away, but failed because she was confined to a house that was heavily guarded.
“My father knew all my plans. I tried to run away many times, but I was always caught. I even became suicidal, I just wanted to die,” she explained.
Priscilla ran to the streets in search of her death, but God spared her life.
She spent one year on the streets of Lusaka, during which time she would spend nights either under the bridge in the Kamwala trading area or at Intercity Bus Terminus. She uncaringly abused alcohol and did not care about her tomorrow; whether it would find her dead or alive.
During the time she was homeless, none of her relatives went to look for her.
It was in 1991 when she developed the courage to report her father to the police.
“One day I felt enough was enough. I stopped feeling like a victim, living on the streets made me strong. I told myself I was going to fight and make my life worthy,” Priscilla shared.
On first attempt to get justice, police officers could not believe her story.
“At the police station, officers chased me because of the way I was looking. They thought I was mentally disturbed because I looked very dirty,” Priscilla says.
A police officer who was just reporting for work met her outside the office, and somehow took interest in listening to her story.
And later that day, her father was arrested and charged with incest.
News of her father’s arrest spread far and wide. She recalls seeing a story in the Zambia Daily Mail the following day.
“When I saw him in handcuffs, I felt so powerful,” she shared.
Sadly, her father was not remorseful about what he had done to her. At court, he would look into Priscilla’s eyes and warn her that he would kill her.
Priscilla says her family was very upset with her for arraigning her father in court. No one supported her, neither offered to testify in court because they thought she had betrayed her father.
Priscilla’s last blow was the time when she lost the case in court.
“My own mother betrayed me in court. She told the court that I was not my father’s biological daughter and the incest charge was dismissed. I know that my mother was lying to protect my father. I suspect she was compelled to lie by my father’s other wives,” she said.
Priscilla had no choice but to return to the streets. However, this time around she was getting material support from the two magistrates who had presided over her court case.
The named magistrates started helping her with food and shelter.
One day, the magistrates invited Priscilla for a meeting where she met a man who was to help her with rehabilitative counselling and financial assistance.
After that, she ventured into cross-border business. It was during her business trip to Zimbabwe that she met her husband, Reto Schaufelberger, who she wed in 1999.
Reto says he did not care about his wife’s past when he met her. What mattered to him was the life they were going to start together.
“I used to run a restaurant in Zimbabwe, so I met her there. From there, we got married and settled in Zambia.
Trust me, when I first met her and made intentions, she really wanted to tell me about her past, but I did not want to know. I just wanted to start afresh with her,” Reto says about his wife of 21 years.
The Schaufelbergers relocated to Switzerland after their wedding and lived there for 13 years.
“My children are still shunned, they are like taboo,” Priscilla said.
In 2006 Priscilla felt compelled to help children from troubled homes, therefore she opened Priscilla Schaufelberger Home of Abused Foundation (PSHAF) in Lusaka. At that time she was still in Switzerland.
She only returned to Zambia with her husband, Reto, in 2013 after President Michael Sata persuaded them to do so on one of his official visits to London.
In the book Stolen Childhood, Priscilla shares chilling details of how she became an adult slave of late father.
