Loving Our Twins, Loving Our Life

Rape victim Jes Foord has put her harrowing ordeal firmly behind her as she raises her gorgeous twins with husband Jono

- Gabisile Ngcobo

A CARPET of autumn leaves covers the ground in the tree-lined avenue as the couple arrive with their three-year old twins.

We’re meeting at Kloof Memorial Park near Durban, where they come every year to celebrate the kids’ birthday in February and let the kids run around the playground and explore the grounds.

They look like any other family enjoying a day out together and no one could be more content than mom Jes Foord. Yet there was a time she couldn’t imagine she’d ever feel carefree again – let alone at ease in the outdoors.

In 2008, Jes (30) and her father, Tim, made headlines when they were attacked by five men while walking their dogs at Shongweni Dam in Hillcrest near Durban. Jes was raped by four of the men as the fifth held a knife to her dad’s throat, forcing him to witness her ordeal.

Jes went through hell in the months that followed and became wary of relationships.

She’d always wanted to be a mom but it seemed unlikely, especially as doctors had warned her she’d struggle to become pregnant after having lost half an ovary due to a burst cyst.

Yet within a month after she and her husband, Jono, decided to try for a family she was expecting the twins. Pigeon pair Layla and Daniel were born in 2014 and today Jes is happier than she could ever have dreamt possible.

JES met Jono in June 2009, just more than a year after the attack. She tells YOU she struggled to form lasting relationships after her ordeal. “I was known as the three month girl,” she says.

Then she met Jono at a Hillcrest nightclub and was instantly smitten. They were married in 2011.

She still can’t believe how big the twins have grown or how quickly the past three years have gone by. She’s having the time of her life raising her children but there were moments when she fretted about whether she was doing the right thing.