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Outlook: Raising my baby in a Thai prison

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Vanessa Goosen (credit: Magna of Magnificent Photography)

13/06/2019 GMT

Raising my baby in a Thai prison

BBC World Service - Outlook, Raising my baby in a Thai prison

A Miss South Africa contestant jailed in Thailand, facing the death penalty and pregnant

How a Miss South Africa contestant was jailed in Thailand for drug-smuggling and what happened when she discovered she was having a baby.

Vanessa Goosen’s life and career seemed to be going from strength to strength; she reached the semi-finals of the Miss South Africa modelling competition and had started her own fashion shop. That was all about to change after she agreed to bring four engineering books back from Thailand for a friend in Johannesburg. She's written a book about her ordeal, it's called Drug Muled: Sixteen Years in a Thai Prison: The Vanessa Goosen Story.

We head over to the North of Johannesburg to meet Zara Julius, whose life revolves around sounds and music. She also has a very impressive record collection, maybe 500 or so vinyl records and she’s selected a few of them that represent her soundtrack to the city she grew up in.

Matt Berger was nine years old in 2008 when he went out for the day with his dad, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger and their dog. Little did they know that Matt was about to make an extraordinary discovery. Matt took the Outlook team out in a jeep to the site of his discovery at the Cradle of Humankind an hour or so northwest of Johannesburg.

We go to downtown Johannesburg, to the ‘i was shot in joburg’ art gallery to meet Collens Mohlaba and Thapelo Tebele, two young men from disadvantaged backgrounds who are turning junk into jewellery.

Image: Vanessa Goosen
Credit: Magna of Magnificent Photography

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