A mute, severely disabled and starving 27-year-old woman was rescued for a second time in just one week from a dark, rat-infested hellhole in Booysen Park last week.The badly malnourished woman was removed from the shack on Saturday by police, while, it is alleged, her inebriated mother lay passed out nearby.The rats had been chewing on the hair and scalp of the skeletal young woman, who is unable to talk or walk.It is also suspected that she had been raped repeatedly.“When we found her she was eating dry rice out of the packet and trying to swallow it with water from a dirty bottle,” Anneliese Damons, who runs the Cinderella Project, which provides dresses and shoes to girls in the northern areas for their matric farewells, said.“I was shocked to discover that she was already 27. She was so small – like a young girl.“The door to that shack didn’t lock.“Men were in and out of there.“There is not a teaspoon or a cup in the house, just the dirty plastic bottle she was holding onto.“Her teeth were so brown it looked like she had a mouth full of soil.“It smelled like she was dead, but she was still alive.“She was coughing a deep, sore cough like one who is dying.“She can’t walk and she can’t speak.”Residents in the area first became aware of the situation in November, when the landlord carried the paralysed woman out of the dingy little shack and dumped her on the side of the road.Blood and worms were oozing from her mouth, the residents claimed.She looked like she was no older than 13.At the time, her mother was allegedly out drinking.The neighbours eventually carried the woman back to the shack at the back of the house.For months thereafter, they saw men going in and out of the shack and heard her screaming, leading them to believe that she was being raped repeatedly.Though they say they alerted police and medical officials to her plight, no-one came out to investigate or to help her.Only Damons responded when they eventually turned to her in desperation.“I received a message on Facebook from a lady in Booysen Park,” Damons said.“She wanted to know if I only help girls with shoes and dresses or if I can help a girl in other ways too. ”After listening to their concerns, Damons went to the shack with some friends.The memory of what she found a week ago still brings her to tears.“The woman had rat bites on her head as they had begun to chew on her hair and scalp.“The community was scared that an ambulance would not come out so they all gave money and raised R350 to pay for a private ambulance,” Damons said.A metro ambulance finally came to fetch her as darkness fell on Tuesday night.“She was so scared of the ambulance crew and kept on trying to push them away.“One of the men from the community eventually had to carry her out of that shack in his arms,” she said. Her bed was covered in excrement.Livingstone Hospital staff wept as they cut her clothes from her body – a dirty, grey tracksuit that she had been wearing for months.According to social workers’ records, the woman’s mother was imprisoned in Cape Town several years ago for using her to smuggle tik and mandrax hidden in her nappies.The mother was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and her two other children were put up for adoption.Her disabled daughter was placed in a home but, when the home burnt down, the mother was released from prison early to take care of her daughter.They ended up in the shack in Booysen Park in 2017.A human trafficking investigator, who works undercover in the area and cannot be named as a result, said she had never seen a case this bad.“The first doctor who saw her immediately sent her to the rape crisis centre.“I have 55 cases and this is by far the worst.“The shack where they kept her was pitch dark.“People saw men going in and out of there and they heard her screams.“This is an awful case.”She said what made it worse was that the disabled woman’s hospital file marked her clearly as a “defaulting patient” because her mother never collected her epilepsy medicine.“Nobody ever bothered to look in on her,” the investigator said.“Also, in November, a social worker wrote a note that she must be moved to a place of safety and that the social grant must be stopped, but nothing was done.”She said they had to rescue the paralysed woman again after she was discharged from Dora Nginza Hospital at 3am on Thursday.“Her mother took her home.“When I got there on Friday, the woman was back on the bed in the shack.“There was no food. The last time she ate was at hospital on Wednesday.“We went to the police and we went to fetch her again.“I don’t think she will survive being returned to that place again.“We are going to push for a prosecution in this case,” the investigator said.Farouk Japhta, from Concerned Citizens of PE Metro, said he had been shocked by what they found at the house.“When I arrived there, the girl was eating dry rice.“Even the mother was saying to us, ‘take the child, just take the child’.“The landlady had given her an eviction notice because of what she [allegedly] did to that child.”Audrey Campher, from the same organisation, said she cried every time she thought of the woman in the shack.She said the mother and daughter had been there for two years, according to some of the residents.“I think the rats thought the woman was dead because of the smell,” Campher said.“That is why they started eating her.“I said to her when we went to see her today [Sunday], ‘I will make sure you are never returned to your mother’.“There was no water or electricity in that shack.“Her clothes have never been washed. She is like a baby.“I was worried last week when we left them at Dora Nginza Hospital.“I thought it is Allpay [social grants] weekend. The mother would need her.”The mother did not respond to a request for comment.Health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said the department would investigate why the woman was discharged from Dora Nginza Hospital.“The girl is safe now. The nurses said a social worker will come see her tomorrow [Monday],” he said.Police spokesperson captain Johan Rheeder said the police had helped residents to remove the woman from the shack.He said a case had not been opened yet.