‘Danny Jordaan raped me’
“THE pain and anger of more than a million people who tweeted #MeToo in the last week have crowded social media with personal stories of sexual harassment or assault,” says Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN undersecretary-general and executive director of UN Women.
Among those women is former ANC MP and singer Jennifer Ferguson, who stated on Facebook and her blog she was raped one night 24 years ago in a Port Elizabeth Hotel by SA Football Association boss Danny Jordaan.
“This virtual march of solidarity marks both the urgency of finding a shared voice and the hidden scale of assault that did not previously have a register. When women are almost invisible, when they are not really seen, it seems that people do not have to care what happens to them,” said Mlambo-Ngcuka, a former deputy president of South Africa.
“This online outcry is important because it is giving voice to acts that are public, but that are silenced and neutralised by convention.”
The #MeToo social media trend that went viral locally after rape allegations against Jordaan surfaced, has sparked a number of women to open up about their own past sexual assault ordeals.
Some of the women who took to Twitter and Facebook yesterday said they had been emboldened to speak out about the personal sex violations, some dating 22 years back.
Independent Media made several attempts to contact Jordaan and Safa spokesperson Dominic Chimhavi but no response was given by deadline.
Ferguson’s “truth-speak” comes after a number of prominent global females came out to expose their sexual offenders. In the US, actress Alyssa Milano took to Twitter and urged any women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted to write two words on Twitter: “Me too.”
“If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem,” wrote the actress, who is known for her roles in Who’s the Boss? Melrose Place and Charmed, and as a host on Project Runway All Stars.
Milano is one of prominent film producer Harvey Weinstein’s accusers. Weinstein is accused of sexual offences against a number of women in Hollywood, including Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Angelina Jolie, and Dame Judi Dench.
Ferguson says: “Why am I disclosing now? Partly because we need to understand how hard it is to come forward and speak out. Even for those of us who can move mountains when it comes to activism, political and social engagement, cultural creation, performance on stages, it has been hard to come out with the truth.
“Why? Because somewhere there is a template of shame and wrongdoing, a thought that it was my ‘fault’. And that I no longer need in my life. Survivors of abuse do not need to feel any shame, anymore. We are not to blame. We are not guilty of anything.
“I want my sons, my partner, my male friends to be empowered in the language of sexuality. To know that you need to ask if it’s okay? And ask again, just to be sure. To beware of objectifying. In this age where young people are exposed to not only the highly seductive objectification of sex online, but pornographic extremities are now becoming the norm.”
ANC spokesperson Khusela Sangoni would not comment because a case had not been opened and Jordaan had not been charged.
“It is premature to make a comment or anything. At this stage no charges have been proffered,” said Sangoni.
“However, our standpoint as the ANC is that firstly we will always fight on the side of women who are victimised.
“We believe this is a scourge in our society and it must be defeated and anybody who then perpetuates such crimes must be called upon to face the full might of the law.”