‘Giving up was not an option’

Safia Khan vividly remembers the day she was dropped off at a house in Benoni on Johannesburg’s East Rand with a plastic bag filled with the little belongings. She was just seven years old and was excited about spending the weekend there – making new friends and playing games little girls loved to play. That’s how her dad said it would be.

But what she didn’t know was that the house served as a poorly run Islamic faith-based orphanage and she was its newest young resident. Her dad facilitated the application. As Khan exited the car, keen to have two days of fun and laughter, there was no way of knowing that she would spend 10 of the most agonising and terrifying years of her life there.

“I was told that I was there for the weekend, but the weekend passed and no one arrived to fetch me. I waited to go back home. Before I knew it, a month passed and I was still there. And then something clicked in me that I was left to live there,” Khan said.

Fast-forward several years and Khan is a full-time lecturer and PhD candidate in the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) School of Economics. She teaches probability and statics to master’s students; micro-econometrics to master’s and PhD students; and development and labour economics to undergraduate students. Today, she is living her dream. But life has been hard and excruciatingly painful and “never in a million years” would the once anxious, withdrawn and socially awkward Khan believe that she would break free – achieve personal and academic success and undergo a healing journey that has enabled her to live and to love.

Khan’s dogged pursuit of success despite a degenerative autoimmune condition, also considered to be an invisible disability, redefines defying the odds. Ahead of International Day of Persons with Disabilities, observed on Tuesday, 3 December, the UCT Newsroom sat down with her for more on her gripping life story.

The ‘standard narrative’ vs the truth

For a large chunk of her life – after high school, during life as an undergraduate business science student at UCT and once she qualified and moved into the world of work – Khan “sold” a standard narrative about her life. She grew up in Johannesburg, she is the daughter of divorced parents and attended a Muslim boarding school. This was a skewed version of the truth.

Like countless other South African families, Khan came from a broken home where the scourge of sexual and gender-based violence raised its ugly head every day. Her father was an alcoholic and “a paedophile” who physically, sexually and psychologically abused her mom, herself, as well as her two sisters.

“He would get drunk and belligerent every day and beat us until he drew blood.”

“When my parents spilt, my father insisted on taking my sister and I with him, and he threatened my mother’s life if she didn’t let us go. So, she did. We lived in a small flat on my great aunt’s property. There’s was very little food, we seldom had clean clothing and there was zero childcare,” she said. “He would get drunk and belligerent every day and beat us until he drew blood. When I saw him, I would wet myself. We lived like this for more than a year, till he banished my sister and I off to the orphanage.”

Incomprehensible rules

But the orphanage was not a sanctuary and haven for young, vulnerable girls, all of whom were between the ages of six and 19. Khan said the rules were incomprehensible and hindered their individual growth and development.

To start, she said, no one was allowed to leave the premises except to go to school, and playing outside during free time was forbidden. Strangely, she said, most windows in the house were sealed shut – making it impossible to open them for fresh air, and the gates on the periphery of the house were sheathed with zinc canvasses, shielding everyone from passersby or anything happening on the street.

Reading novels, watching TV and listening to music were also not allowed. And Khan, who had a strong affinity for reading, would get books from her friends at school and read them quietly under the covers after lights out in the evening. Psychosocial and emotional support were non-existent, which in hindsight were crucial, given each child’s very troubled background. Mealtime was the worst. Six girls were required to eat from the same platter and the food was often of poor quality – discoloured meat with stodgy rice. Most days, Khan would be too nauseas to eat and would “bury my pride” at school the next day and ask girls in her class to share their lunch.

Physical, sexual and emotional abuse

Khan said even basic hygiene practices were never discussed and none of the girls were schooled on what to do during menstruation (or about the changes in the body that went hand in hand with it). They were not provided with female hygiene products either – leaving them to figure it out for themselves and to make do with the little they had. But the hardest part about living at the orphanage was enduring the constant physical, psychological and emotional abuse. Several girls, she said, who confided in her, were sexually assaulted by adult male perpetrators who ran the orphanage. Two fell pregnant and were forced to institute adoption processes immediately. Sadly, these cases all went unreported.

“There are no words to describe that phase of my life other than lonely and terrifying.”

“There are no words to describe that phase of my life other than lonely and terrifying. I missed the millennial pop zeitgeist, and when I left, I had no idea what Wikipedia or Harry Potter was. There was no solace, and I was deeply distressed and depressed and didn’t know it,” Khan said. “Understanding the notion and true duration of time was one of the hardest parts. I spent a full decade there – a decade of my formative years and it felt like eternity. I thought I would never get out.”

‘My teachers saved me’

But Khan’s teachers saved her. As a bright, young mind who performed well in the classroom, it was impossible to ignore her potential. They encouraged her to give her studies her all and to pursue her dream of attaining a university degree. Like many children, maths was a tough nut to crack. So, her maths teacher offered her free tuition after school every day to help her get through the subject on the higher grade. The sessions paid off.

After writing what the provincial Department of Education described as one of the best history essays they had ever seen, Khan’s Grade 11 history teacher assured her that if she produced six distinctions early in matric, he would help her get into a university of her choice. She produced the goods, missing a distinction for maths by a hair. Of course, he remained true to his word. He supervised her scholarship application process and was by her side to facilitate the university application process too – ensuring she understood the programmes and what they entailed. When she got word that she was awarded a full scholarship to attend a university of her choice, Khan chose UCT, mainly because it was furthest from Johannesburg.

“By then I reconnected with my mother and she and her husband tried to dissuade me from going to university. My stepfather said my only fate was to become a secretary. But I was determined to go out there and make something of my life. I was elated when I got into UCT. But I wish I could say things were easy when I arrived. I struggled to adapt,” she said.

“I didn’t know any of the things my peers were talking about – pop culture, music, movies, restaurants or anything about something as simple as a headache tablet. I didn’t know how to use the internet because every school task and assignment I completed, I used an encyclopaedia. I struggled badly, all alone.”

A journey of overcoming

But Khan was a workhorse and immersed herself in her academic programme and the mountain of coursework that came with it, studying meticulously towards her degree. The mantra she had written on her wall at the orphanage and read out loud daily: “work, eat, sleep and knock ‘em dead” made the journey with her to UCT, and it saw her through.

“While everyone was doing university rite of passage fun things, I studied. I fought and I made it. I listened to so much music, read so much good literature and during the holidays got textbook hand-me-downs and studied for the term ahead,” she said.

And with effort comes reward. During her first math exam at UCT, Khan scored 100%. But it took some tough grind. In the process, she also battled depression and started therapy sessions with a social worker in UCT’s Department of Social Work to help her fight her demons. Slowly, she started to peel away the layers of her trauma.

“It also shocked me how unfriendly, cliquey and unwelcoming everyone was.”

“The hardest part of all of it was that I was alone. I didn’t know a soul and UCT was elite. The extent of inequality and the bubble many of these students lived in shocked me to my core. There were 18-year-olds with keys to BMWs. My brain could not keep up,” she said. “It also shocked me how unfriendly, cliquey and unwelcoming everyone was. I felt ostracised, but giving up was not an option.”

Coming full circle

But Khan pressed on and when she graduated with her honours, she was determined to keep the momentum going and enrolled for her master’s. By the age of 23, she had completed a master’s in econometrics and mathematical economics, as well as in applied economics. She attained distinctions in both. And for the first time, she said, “I felt free”. Today, her life has come full circle – she is proudly queer, has achieved professional success and is married to the man of her dreams.

As a lecturer in UCT’s School of Economics and a PhD candidate whose research analyses South African women in the early democracy labour market, Khan believes that her life experience gives her a different lens through which to connect with her students.

“My interactions come from a point of deliberate and conscious compassion. I had to hold so much but just needed the chance to learn, and so I give all my students a fair chance too. A weak student today is not a weak student in their entirety. So, I often ask, ‘Are you okay?’ and without therapising them, it can help them feel seen,” she said.

Living with an invisible disability

Khan opted to leave the long road to her autoimmune condition diagnosis for the end of the interview. She said she was in her early 20s when she started developing excruciating body pain. Yet, doctors could find nothing medically wrong with her. In 2019, her body weight doubled, and she struggled to get out of bed. Multiple trips to various doctors yielded no answers and her condition worsened. By 2022, a few short months before her diagnosis, she was unable to walk, stand on her own, or perform simple everyday tasks like go to the bathroom. She was solely reliant on a wheelchair to get around. Finally, after “every diagnostic test under the sun”, Khan was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition (she has requested to withhold the name for personal reasons).

Today, Khan teaches while sitting down and receives other privileges like a disability parking bay on campus. But living with an invisible disability is hard. Khan said there are no “signals of distress” and people often say “You don’t look sick.” Therefore, she has become an advocate for disability rights among both students and staff and uses every public platform to discuss the topic and create awareness.

“Find your nugget of hope and clutch onto it because life depends on it.”

On International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Khan’s advice is clear: believe in your capabilities and never give up on their dreams.

“Your worth is not determined by your disability, and you don’t have to fight, be strong or inspire people through your disability. It’s okay to say: ‘I’m not coping, I need to stop’ and it’s important to say: ‘I am human and worthy of love and respect despite this condition’. And even though some days you might want to give up, know that you have survived every single tough day before it. Find your nugget of hope and clutch onto it because life depends on it,” she said.

The name of the unregistered orphanage is known to UCT News but is being withheld to protect past and present minor residents.

Khan’s sister left the orphanage and bought a one-way ticket to the United States. She studied maths and physics at the University of California, Davis. She now lives in Texas.