Sameera tells all
Victim claims ‘revenge porn’ after sex tape goes viral
A SCORNED lover is allegedly in hiding after a sex tape of him and his former fiancée went viral on social media.
This week, Sameera Naidoo, 25, of Chatsworth, laid criminal charges of abuse, harassment, and damage to property against a fellow call centre employee whom she once dated and thought about marrying.
The video clip, which is 2 minutes, 17 seconds long, was shared on a WhatsApp group late last week, and thereafter went viral on Facebook.
The couple, who broke up two weeks ago after a fight, recently filmed themselves having sex at his home in Phoenix.
In a telephonic interview, Naidoo, a single mother who has a child from a previous relationship, claimed she was the victim of revenge pornography.
Naidoo claimed her ex-fiancée, who she dated for three months before he proposed marriage in August, forced her to have sex that day.
“We were fighting and I wanted to leave and go home. When we were having sex, he demanded I film us.”
They passed the phone to each other, filming. Despite telling him to stop, Naidoo said he continued to film.
A few days later she got angry when he posted pictures of himself with other women on social media.
“We got into a fight and I threw the ring back at him.”
Naidoo said a few days later the man’s former girlfriend circulated the sex video that she thought she had deleted from both their cellphones.
“They released it and ruined my life. It felt like my life was over. He destroyed my life… and it has been torture ever since.”
She said that in order to disguise herself so people did not recognise her from the video, she cut her hair, deleted her social media accounts and is dressing differently.
“My family want me to stay with them so they can look after me. It is not fair that I am getting most of the media backlash when both of us are in the video. I am a woman of standards.”
Naidoo said she met her former fiancé on Sunday and they got into an argument.
During the argument, he allegedly smashed her cellphone.
Now that she has gone to the police, she is afraid he will come after her.
“When we were together, he was jealous and possessive. Now that we are not together, he wants to degrade me as a form of revenge.”
The video has elicited various comments on social media, most of the comments poking fun at the woman.
One person wrote: “We have spent an entire month preaching about protecting the integrity of women, only for a sex clip to surface for us to find humour and place a woman as a target of ridicule, harassment and invasion of someone’s privacy.
“We mock the very laws and values we stand for. Today, it’s a sex tape that is leaked. Tomorrow, it’s a clip of someone being raped that is spread on the internet. We are just promoting rape culture.”
Author Vanessa Govender, author of Beaten But Not Broken, wrote that what happened was criminal, “and I hope many of you understand that! Revenge porn is a crime”!
Naidoo said she had opened cases of abuse and harassment, and another case of damage to property after the accused allegedly smashed her cellphone on Sunday, at the Chatsworth police station.
Numerous attempts to call the fiancé were futile and he was not at home when the POST team visited.
Verlie Oosthuizen, a social media law expert, said the posting of the video could be considered a form of cyberbullying or harassment.
“There is legislation about to be signed into law amending the Film and Publications Board provisions. There was also a possibility that revenge porn would be specifically legislated against in terms of the Cybercrimes Bill. However, that has not been passed yet.”
She said in order for successful prosecutions, and linking suspects to video material and images, one needed clear evidence of the perpetrator and the content.
“The links can usually be obtained by getting the IP (internet protocol) address of the perpetrator who leaked the video, and so establish beyond a reasonable doubt (in a criminal case) or on a balance of probabilities (in a civil case) that they are responsible.”
Oosthuizen added that the perpetrators usually claimed they were hacked to try to avoid responsibility, but forensic information technology experts would be consulted.