Miche Solomon won her court battle this week to cast aside a
court guarantee of anonymity so that she could tell her story. We all know her as Zephany Nurse, the girl who was kidnapped from a maternity ward when she was 3-days-old.
Solomon’s life was torn asunder in 2015, when after being told another girl in class looked remarkably like his daughter, Morne Nurse contacted the Hawks and Solomon was forced to undergo a DNA test.
The results showed that she was baby Zephany.
She had grown up within walking distance of her biological parents, Celeste and Morne Nurse, who had never stopped looking
for her.
The woman she thought was her mother, Lavona Solomon, was sentenced to 10 years in jail for kidnapping her.
Today, Solomon has to deal
with the aftermath, trying to reconnect with biological parents, yet still missing her “mother” who by Solomon’s own account did a great job raising her; indeed, Lavone is the role model Solomon fashions for herself - not her biological mother - as she raises her own two children.
Her story, as difficult as it
has been, is a vital one to tell for many reasons.
It takes immense courage to rip off the shroud of anonymity, but in doing so it allows Solomon to take control of her own life and indeed of her own life story and not allow others to narrate it on her behalf - as some have tried.
In a country where legally women are equal, but in practice the reality is very different, Solomon has made a real stand, symbolically in the very month that we commemorate the power of women 63 years ago.
We hope it will encourage other women, young and old, to do the same, owning their stories and not letting anyone else tell it for
them.