He said, now she says…
In Episode 3 of Independent Media’s docuseries, Baby Trade, the team have a heart to heart chat with Moliehi Maria Sithole who now also goes by the name of Gosiame Tamara Sithole, the mother of the Tembisa 10.
Gosiame, means ‘all is well’, but clearly not everything is happy endings for Ms Sithole, around whom numerous urban legends have recently sprung. Obviously reproductively abundant, given the fact she has had a number of previous births, including twins and triplets, she has been accused of faking her latest pregnancy, which gave rise to 10 babies.
She vehemently denies that she made up the story, and indeed, there are many witnesses to corroborate her swelling pregnancy. This did not, unfortunately, stop the majority of the local and international press from proclaiming the story as fake or indeed in some reports, even alluding to her as delusional, something the team touch on in a future episode.
The fact that so many people had seen her in her pregnant state, was also picked up by Advocate Michael Donen, who conducted an independent review of the story on behalf of Independent Media.
Subsequent to Donen’s findings, Independent Media then launched a number of initiatives in an attempt to get to the bottom of the story and to discover what happened to the Tembisa 10.
In “Madonna: All is Well”, Ms Sithole touches on her childhood, her marriage to Johannes Sithole, his tragic death and that of their first born son.
Her relationships with Sipho Mzolo (father of her triplets) and the latest love of her life, Teboho Tsosetsi – who claims to be the father of the ten.
The programme also touches base with other members of the family, and reveals sworn testimony from people around the pregnancy.
“In unpacking the truth of the claims of trafficking made at Independent Media’s press conference in October this year, we believe it is important to understand the context and the characters of the people who are central to the story,” said Viasen Soobramoney, editorial director of the docuseries.
“It has taken the team some time to unravel what is a very complicated sequence of events and sift through numerous pieces of evidence and to verify what we have. There is so much to tell, which is why we are simplifying the process and portraying their stories in bite sized chunks per episode.”
Episode 3 also subtly refers back to a character around whom much of the trafficking claims hinge. Madonna: All is Well, ends on the night of 7th June 2021…what follows next is what we all want to know.