WRONG TO STICK RAPIST TAG ON SUSPECTS BEFORE CLAIM IS TESTED IN COURT

WHY CALL men misogynists for presumption of innocence? It is profoundly difficult to speak about rape, especially as a man, but I’ll try to audaciously speak truthfully and honestly.

The past two weeks, I was traumatised by stories of horrific rape ordeals women allegedly suffered at the hands of men. Many women used various media to expose their own sexual assaults by men, some of them public figures. I felt so traumatised as though I’d raped a woman myself.

Among these women was Jennifer Ferguson, a singer, who alleged that Danny Jordaan, the Safa president, raped her in a Port Elizabeth Hotel room.

Following a public outcry on his silence on the matter, the Safa boss caved in and rejected the allegation through a statement.

If I were accused of such a serious allegation, I would’ve promptly repudiated the allegation. However, I can’t judge the Safa boss on the basis of his prolonged silence.

When the allegation surfaced, Ntsiki Mazwai, a poet, called for the soccer boss to be dismissed. While Brickz was being sentenced, Mazwai alleged on Twitter that she was raped by the kwaito star.

Brickz was sentenced to 15 years in prison after being found guilty of raping a then 17-year- old relative in 2013. We (are) thus all safe to condemn the kwaito star as a rapist.

Though I’m empathetic to victims of rape, should we condemn people who have been accused of raping women as rapists before such a serious allegation is robustly tested in court ?

Why should men who refuse to prejudge others as rapists be deemed as misogynists? Does society or women expect that men should suspend their thinking or experiences of being falsely accused and condemn men accused as rapists to demonstrate empathy?

Recently, police released the 2016/17 stats. Though they demonstrate a decline in sexual offences by 4.3% from 2015/16 , which saw 51 895 victims of sexual crime, the 2016/17 financial year number slightly declined to 49 660.

Despite this decline, there’s nothing to celebrate as there shouldn’t be any woman being sexually violated in the first place.

Our society possesses empirical evi- dence of numerous men who’ve been falsely accused of rape by women in this country.

Because we are aware of men falling victim to false accusations of rape, should we therefore ignore this reality and condemn men as sexual predators on account of a woman’s “claim” to be a rape survivor?

Let’s perhaps personalise rape by asking: Would those who demand that we call allegations of rape “gospel truth”, allow society to also condemn those they are intimately involved with, as rapists based on women’s singular accounts of rape? Tomorrow, it will be your father, husband, uncle, brother and son who’ll be falsely accused of sexual crimes.

In matters as emotive as this, I believe we should all allow competent institutions such as the courts to give us permission to call those accused rapists, after a thorough judicial process culminating in a conviction.

For instance, we can now safely call Brickz a rapist as a court of law, and not public opinion, processed the matter legally and brought everything to finality.

Thabo Moetji