Last week I went through my phone to read the news online and within minutes, I was doing everything in my power to stop the avalanche of tears that was cascading down my face. It had been a while since I felt that helpless and betrayed – and I struggled immeasurably to make sense of what was happening.
Various news articles were published across several news sites, all of them screaming with headlines about a high-ranking member of the African National Congress in Mpumalanga who had been arrested for the alleged rape of his young daughters.
It was not just the story that tore me apart, it was the fact that some of those news articles contained the name of the accused – thereby indirectly identifying the alleged victims.
The news articles were shared many times online – by men and women who were outraged by the crime. Soon after the story broke, the ANC released a statement that also identified the alleged perpetrator. It was because of this that many people did not think that there was anything wrong with identifying him and circulating his images across social media.
But even if the ANC identified him, I expected more from journalists. I expected them to not only understand that it is unlawful to name a suspect who has not appeared in court, but to also prioritise, above all else, the public interest. I expected journalists to be humane.
When some of us raised this issue, arguing that how the story was being reported was deeply damaging to those children, some people argued that it was in the public interest that we know the accused’s name because he is an elected official of the governing party.
I reject this argument with contempt, because there is no public interest that can ever justify the violation of the rights of the alleged victims – especially because they are children.
A victim does not get more vulnerable than an eight-year-old child. That someone believes it is more important to name a politician accused of rape than it is to protect eight-year-old children who are going through unimaginable trauma is something I cannot reconcile. I refuse to accept that there are people with this level of depravity.
Rape is the cruellest crime – more so than murder in my opinion. For one thing, there are reasons for murder that are understandable – circumstances where murder may even be justified. And philosophically, the law understands this, that is why not all murders are treated as acts of callous disregard for human life.
Where there is premeditation and intention, the murder is punished severely. But not all murders are premeditated or intentional, hence we have various degrees of interpretation of the crime. Rape, on the other hand, has absolutely no justification.
Secondly, where murdered victims die once, victims of rape must go on with the motions of being alive. Research demonstrates the lifelong battles that rape survivors have particularly mental health challenges which are sometimes fatal. Sometimes surviving rape is just as cruel as enduring it.
And perhaps more insidious is that whereas society mourns the dead, rape victims are often shamed by society – forced to reside in shadows of scorn. And with our broken legal system where many rapes go unpunished and even unacknowledged, rape survivors are consistently subjected to secondary victimisation.
And this is what was done to those children by reckless journalists. They prioritised a sensational story at the cost of the well-being of children who have already suffered so much in so many ways. I cannot think of anything more cruel. Shame on you!
