News Review: Nine-year nightmare of abuse

She came here at 13 for a better life. Instead she became a victim of rape and violence. NAOMI LARKIN on the girl used as a sex slave by her uncle and aunt.

The one good thing in her miserable life was her job.

At work the 22-year-old had friends who saw her as normal. At home she was the sex slave and punchbag of her uncle, Iosua Chankee, and aunt, Avemaoe Chankee.

But then her work hours changed, meaning she would not necessarily be home when Iosua wanted to rape her in their South Auckland home.

"Avemaoe said he would [now] come every day and have sex with me before I [went to] work. So I gave up my job."

That was the final indignity that forced her this year to run away and end nearly a decade of horrendous sexual and physical abuse that began after she arrived, aged 13, at her relatives' Papatoetoe home from Samoa.

On Saturday in the High Court at Auckland, Avemaoe Chankee, 59, was found guilty of all but one of the five rape charges involving her niece which she had denied. She was also found guilty of injuring with intent, procuring an abortion and attempting to pervert the course of justice. She had earlier pleaded guilty to assault with an electric cord.

Iosua Chankee, 55, had earlier pleaded guilty to 10 sex-related charges, two of assault with a weapon and one of injuring with intent.

On Saturday he was found guilty of indecently assaulting the 22-year-old's 18-year-old sister when she was visiting from Samoa this year. He was found not guilty of two counts of rape and two of unlawful sexual connection involving the teenager.

The 22-year-old told the Herald that she wanted her uncle jailed for "a long time."

"To other people he was a good person, but to me his background is ugly. He was funny to other people but, to me, he's not funny."

In the witness box, seated with her back to both accused, she said she had forgiven Avemaoe but not Iosua.

Avemaoe, she told police, participated in the abuse because "she doesn't want her family to know what is going on - this is her way of avoiding having arguments and keeping the family peaceful."

In her own defence, Avemaoe stated to police that even from age 13 the girl wanted sex with Iosua.

"He definitely isn't raping her if she wants to do it."

The young woman's ordeal began in 1990 after family members decided she would have a better life and education living with the Chankees in New Zealand.

The Chankees had a number of children of their own.

Just two weeks into the victim's schooling at Papatoetoe Intermediate, the school had a half-day and Iosua, who was a butcher at a South Auckland abattoir, came to take her home.

In the lounge he kissed her "tongue to tongue." Recoiling, she fled to her bedroom and climbed out the window. However, Iosua caught her and administered the first of many "hidings."

Frightened and alone in a new country, she turned to her aunt for protection. Avemaoe confronted her husband and was told it would not happen again.

But two weeks later he crept into the girl's room where she lay sleeping and raped her, whispering that he would kill her if she told anyone.

At first the rapes were weekly, but over the years they increased in frequency to sometimes several times a day. "During those years that this was all taking place, I never told anyone about it. I had nobody to tell. I was ashamed about what was taking place and I was terribly afraid of what would happen it I told anyone."

It became Iosua's habit to drive her every Sunday to visit a relative in Otara. During either leg of the journey - sometimes both - he would park the car behind a clump of bushes in East Tamaki. Forcing her into the back seat, he would rape her or oral sex would take place.

He kept a Samoan cricket bat in the car in case she refused.

At 15, she became pregnant to Iosua. Apparently delighted at the news, he left town to make arrangements for her to have the child.

While he was away, Avemaoe gave the teenager a dose of Epsom salts. She told her to lie down and after feeling her stomach, stood on it. A day later the girl miscarried.

When Iosua returned, Avemaoe told him about the miscarriage. She also established the bizarre rule that from then on he had to ask her permission every time he wanted sex with their niece.

"A young girl shouldn't be able to tell an older man what to do - that's the wife's job, not the young girl," Avemaoe told police.

About a week after the miscarriage the teenager was raped again. This time Avemaoe held her down.

When discussing with police how his wife assisted him in raping and abusing the victim generally, Iosua punctuated his statement with the comment: "Good wife, eh?" and laughed.

In January of this year, the complainant's mother and her 18-year-old sister were staying with the Chankees while on holiday from Samoa.

The 22-year-old told the Herald that the visitors were put in the sleepout and she was never left alone with them.

To further alienate her, Avemaoe told her that her mother did not care for her as she did for the other children because she had a different natural father and was therefore only a "half" daughter.

"That made me feel hurt and angry with my mother."

Her sister told the court that Iosua came into the sleepout and touched her on the chest but left after she told him to get out.

Soon after, the 18-year-old was sent to stay with a nephew who lived nearby.

She alleged that one morning after the nephew had left for work, Iosua came and twice raped her before forcing her to perform oral sex on him.

Distraught, she told Avemaoe, who held a family conference before the teenager and her mother returned to Samoa. Iosua Chankee was found not guilty of the charges resulting from these claims.

In April, shortly after quitting her job, the 22-year-old ran away.

"I could see that there was no future for me in that house."

But Iosua tracked her down and, with the help of Avemaoe, who was armed with a table leg, beat her.

In a series of photographs taken by the police after the attack, she is barely recognisable - her face swollen from the blows, her body bruised and her head shaven.

The next day she stole out of the house while the couple were praying and, with the help of a friend, went to the police.

"I felt good when I told the police," she told the Herald. "I did want to run away but ... I didn't know how to run away."

With the court case behind her and a new job ahead, the young woman wants to advise others who are being abused to seek help.

"The longer you leave it the worse it gets.

"Don't try to discuss it with family ... Go to the police because family will try to put it away."