Exposed – The shocking conditions inside an illegal drug rehabilitation centre in Cape Town

When a woman and three men turned up at Sarah’s* aunt’s house one day, she thought they had come to fetch her for an “outpatient therapy session” designed to heal her fractious relationship with her mother. It was only when the gate was locked behind them at an isolated property in Hout Bay, Cape Town, that Sarah realised she had been lied to.

“You’ve been booked into Eleanore’s Recovery Centre,” she was told. And no, she couldn’t leave.

The Wendy house at the Eleanore Recovery Centre in Hout Bay where seven women currently sleep while undergoing drug rehabilitation. (Photo: Leila Dougan)

Sarah (28) had been committed by her mother into a 12-month drug treatment programme.

“But on what authority are you holding me here?” Sarah told Daily Maverick she frantically asked her captors. “I don’t even have a speeding fine!”

In South Africa, a person can only be committed to rehab against their will with a court order. To take someone to a rehabilitation centre under false pretences and hold them there under duress amounts to kidnapping.

In this case, there was no court order. She was being kept there on her mother’s instructions, Sarah was told. Daily Maverick was later shown a WhatsApp message from Sarah’s mother to the rehab owner, saying: “Don’t let her go”.

The Eleanore Recovery Centre in Hout Bay, Cape Town on 15 September 2022. When Daily Maverick arrived, a patient was sitting outside unattended and clearly in need of medical attention. (Photo: Leila Dougan)

Sarah stared around her in disbelief. She would be sharing a cramped, stinking shack with seven other women.

“Welcome to the Kingdom,” she was told.

“The Kingdom is anointed, and being in the Kingdom will heal you.”

***

There are just two free government inpatient rehabs in Cape Town.

On the other end of the scale, private luxury rehabs — often touting for business from wealthy Europeans — have mushroomed, sometimes charging in excess of R100,000 per month for residential drug and alcohol treatment programmes.

In the massive gap between these two extremes, countless illegal rehabs have sprung up. As of 2019, the Department of Social Development (DSD) said it was aware of 48 such facilities in the Western Cape — but the total figure was likely far higher. This week, the provincial DSD was unable to provide Daily Maverick with an updated figure.

In November 2021, however, the department issued a plea to the public to “ensure that your loved one(s) sign up for treatment at a registered facility when needing help with a substance use disorder”.

The trigger for that statement was quite specific. In that month, reports emerged of torture and murder at an illegal rehab in Ruyterwacht, in Cape Town’s northern suburbs. Following the death of a 35-year-old patient, former patients came forward with claims that they had been viciously assaulted at the facility, including one allegation of a man being set alight.

The events at Ruyterwacht were, at that time, just the latest in a string of similar incidents that had occurred nationally in the last five years alone, including:

• August 2021: An illegal rehab near Worcester, Western Cape, is accused of blackmailing patients;


• February 2020: The SA Human Rights Commission raids an illegal rehab in Polokwane, Limpopo, and rescues 70 patients chained from hand to ankle;


• October 2018: A man dies after being brutally beaten at an illegal rehab in Magaliesberg, Gauteng;


• February 2018: A gay patient says he was tortured and sexually assaulted at an illegal rehab on the Cape Flats.

The Western Cape DSD said in November last year that among the reports it had received of mistreatment at illegal rehabs were claims of extended isolation, forcing patients to stand in water for many hours, and sexual and emotional abuse “such as degrading the client in front of others”.

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It did not take Sarah long to realise that conditions at Eleanore’s Recovery Centre were even worse than she had first perceived.

Owners of the rehabilitation centre, Robin de Wit (left) and Eleanore Hendricks (right) speak to Daily Maverick in the main house on the property where they both live. (Photo: Leila Dougan)

The windows in the Wendy house in which she would be living alongside other female patients were broken and had been crudely patched with cardboard. There was no toilet, so the women would defecate into plastic bags.

“If your family has not sent toilet paper, you use pages from the Yellow Pages,” Sarah told Daily Maverick.

This waste was then flung on top of a broken-down bakkie, piled with junk, parked alongside the shack. All women shared a single bucket in which to wash themselves.

Sarah discovered that her mother had paid an initial “registration fee” of R2,000, followed by R1,800 a month for her residential treatment.

A urine-soaked mattress outside the Wendy house at the Eleanore Recovery Centre in Hout Bay where seven women currently sleep while undergoing drug rehabilitation. (Photo: Leila Dougan)

This money went to the two owners of the rehab: Eleanore Hendricks — who styles herself as a “Prophetess”, or “Apostle”, with the rehab referred to as her “Kingdom” — and her husband, Robin de Wit.

Hendricks and De Wit live in a large farmhouse on the same property with their extended family. Sarah said that the female patients were tasked daily with cleaning the household.

The “treatment programme” consisted almost entirely of Christian prayer. Patients were expected to participate in morning and afternoon devotions, with food allegedly withheld if they refused to pray.

In an interview Hendricks conducted with a Cape Town Christian radio station in July 2021, she explained that she was “anointed by God” to heal “the broken”, and that the Eleanore’s Recovery Centre programme was “based totally on the word of God”.

The facility also housed male patients, but the women never saw them: the two sexes were forbidden to mix. Sarah claims that if female patients were accused of wearing “revealing” clothing, they were subject to a process called “rebuking” — in which Hendricks would accuse them of being a “gentoo”, or “whore”.

The interior of the Wendy house where six women sleep on bunk beds at the Eleanore Recovery Centre in Hout Bay, Cape Town, 15 September 2022. (Photo: Leila Dougan)

Sarah did not stop pleading to be freed. She had been abducted on Monday, 12 September. On Tuesday, a male relative arrived at the rehab gates and demanded Sarah’s release. He was not permitted to enter the grounds. In a video seen by Daily Maverick, Sarah is prompted by her relative to verbally confirm her desire to leave.

A clearly frightened Sarah, her arms wrapped around her chest, says: “I would like to come with you.” Alongside her, a male member of Hendricks’ team clutches Sarah around the shoulder and mugs for the camera, mocking Sarah’s relative.

De Wit subsequently sent the relative a WhatsApp message, seen by Daily Maverick, threatening: “You fucking idiot I suma [sommer] come to your house now and fuck you up”.

Sarah was not permitted to leave.

***

Why would people sign up their loved ones for facilities like Eleanore’s Recovery Centre even if they know the reality of what they are like? In South Africa, the cheap rates offered by these illegal rehabs are clearly a major part of the answer, but possibly not all of it.

“There is this sense that treatment for addiction should be punitive,” addiction counsellor Freddie van Rensburg told Daily Maverick.

Van Rensburg says that because addiction is still so stigmatised, there is a widespread perception that addicts are “using [drugs] because they want to use”, and are consequently deserving of punishment for their weak willpower.

He adds that some families may enrol members into such facilities out of sheer desperation and hopelessness.

“Addicts can threaten the social, psychological and physical wellbeing of a family. Other family members can become really afraid, and make decisions simply based on what will get the addict out of the house.”

The interior of the Wendy house where six women sleep on bunk beds at the Eleanore Recovery Centre. (Photo: Leila Dougan)

The addiction counsellor said that no reputable rehabs would follow the Eleanore’s Recovery Centre model. Legitimate facilities would treat the addiction and the mental health issues underlying it, would empower the patient with education on the nature of addiction, would carry out group and individual therapy, and encourage healthy living.

Van Rensburg said that most rehabs would incorporate some form of “spiritual work”, but that relying only on Christian teachings to treat addiction was insufficient.

“This person is not using [drugs] because he doesn’t have God in his life, he’s using because he’s in pain and he has some serious shit going on in his life,” Van Rensburg said.

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Western Province DSD spokesperson Esther Lewis told Daily Maverick that in order for a rehab to receive certification from the provincial authorities, multiple criteria must be met. Zoning, safety, health and food preparation clearances must be obtained. If patients are going to detox at the rehab, a special licence from the Department of Health must be obtained.

The facility must have a “qualified, multidisciplinary team of professionals” in place: social workers, nurses and psychologists.

“Registered rehab centres must follow a biopsychosocial approach, which means the health, mental and social dimensions of the client are addressed in the treatment plans.”

Lewis confirmed that Eleanore’s Recovery Centre was not registered with the department. It is, in other words, an illegal rehab.

***

Sarah’s male relative, deeply concerned for her welfare based on what he had seen through the rehab gates, was not prepared to let the matter slide.

Lezanne Drayer says she has lived at the Eleanore Recovery Centre for the past five years. (Photo: Leila Dougan)

He contacted Daily Maverick. He phoned the National Human Trafficking Hotline. He tried, without success, to engage the interest of the Hout Bay police. The Western Cape DSD eventually took him seriously and promised to investigate.

Apparently spooked, Hendricks and De Wit suddenly opted to release Sarah. Her relative received a message instructing him, without explanation, to pick her up.

When released, Sarah had been held at the rehab for seven days.

Robin de Wit (left) and Eleanore Hendricks (right) speak to Daily Maverick at the Eleanore Recovery Centre in Hout Bay, Cape Town. (Photo: Leila Dougan)

Daily Maverick visited Eleanore’s Recovery Centre on Thursday, without forewarning. We drew up at the gates at the same time as “Apostle” Hendricks and De Wit, who agreed to talk to us and let us view the facility.

The first thing we saw was a very thin woman, sitting on a chair in the sun, who appeared to be catatonic. A thin thread of drool hung from her mouth. The other female patients informed us that they had been told she was “bipolar”.

Elsewhere on the premises, the descriptions Sarah had given to Daily Maverick proved accurate. The shack housing the female patients was tiny, crammed with bunk beds, and stank of faeces and urine.

The house in which Hendricks, De Wit and their extended family lived, by contrast, was a sprawling farmhouse.

The main house stands in stark contrast to the Wendy house below it at the Eleanore Recovery Centre in Hout Bay. (Photo: Leila Dougan)

“We are registered, yes,” De Wit said, ushering us into the farmhouse lounge and handing us a framed certificate — which proved to be the registration for a “nonprofit company”, not a rehab, based in Philippi, not Hout Bay.

“Our conditions are not 100%,” De Wit admitted, blaming this on the low fees charged by the rehab.

It was difficult to square the claims of financial woes with the number of patients he said were currently enrolled — 30 — which would be bringing in monthly fees of R54,000, without counting registration fees.

In addition, the rehab’s Facebook page reveals almost constant fundraising activities, ostensibly undertaken to support the facility. The next such event, scheduled for 25 September, is a “Jazz on Lawn” afternoon to be held in the rehab’s name in Pinelands, with entrance at R150 a person and a vendor’s fee of R800.

De Wit flatly denied having held Sarah at the rehab against her will.

“We would not keep her here without her permission,” he said.

Robin de Wit and Eleanore Hendricks listen as patients at the rehabilitation centre speak to Daily Maverick. (Photo: Leila Dougan)

When he was told that Daily Maverick had seen a video of Sarah clearly asking to leave and not being allowed to do so, De Wit shot back: “Well, that’s why we let her leave after that.”

He could not explain why it had taken them a further six days to release her.

De Wit and Hendricks also denied other aspects of Sarah’s story, including the inadequate toilet facilities.

“They choose to pee in a bucket,” Hendricks said, explaining that the patients were welcome to use their indoor toilet, but preferred not to do so at night.

She said the patients were also “welcome to come bath”, but preferred to wash from a bucket.

With reference to the counselling facilities available at Eleanore’s Recovery Centre, De Wit said that both he and Hendricks led “counselling teams”. Asked if either of them possessed the necessary qualifications, he pointed at Hendricks and said: “She does.”

Hendricks said she held a degree in theology and had undergone pastoral training and three months of counselling training.

When Daily Maverick asked to speak to the female patients, the rehab owners agreed without hesitation, and soon five women entered the farmhouse.

Lezanne Drayer and Simone Smith speak to Daily Maverick about their experience living at the Eleanore Recovery Centre in Hout Bay, Cape Town. (Photo: Leila Dougan)

These patients said they were very happy in the “Kingdom”, as they called it. They were treated well, and they considered themselves much safer inside the rehab than out on the streets from where most of them had come.

One said she had been there five years and had no intention of leaving yet. Another said she had been to two “expensive” rehabs before Eleanore’s Recovery Centre, and this was “the only one that worked”.

Earlier, De Wit had told us: “These are people that have nowhere to go.”

***

When Sarah spoke to Daily Maverick this week, she had only been out of the rehab for two days. She said the experience had been so traumatic that her hands still shook whenever she tried to light a cigarette.

It seemed clear that Sarah was going through a kind of survivor’s guilt, for being able to leverage her middle-class status and contacts to escape the rehab when others could not. She said she was the only female patient who had matric; a number of patients, she claimed, could not even read.

“Now, I’m too scared to leave the house. I don’t even want to go to the shop,” Sarah said.

“I am so scared that they could just arrive and take me back again.” DM

*Name changed to protect identity.

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