By Kamogelo Moichela
While the suicide of Bafana Sithole, a Grade 11 pupil at Kriel Hoërskool in Emalahleni, Mpumalanga, has gone viral, police and a legal expert have warned of the consequences that South Africans are likely to face with false accusations.
According to advocate Paul Hoffman SC, director and head of projects at Accountability Now, because the scourge of gender-based violence and femicide in South Africa has reached crisis point, when someone falsely accuses someone of rape, it causes extensive reputational and emotional damage to the accused.
His comments come after school learner Sithole hung himself with a tie on the school premises on Friday.
He sent a note to his mother detailing his pain following the accusations allegedly made by another fellow school pupil who, according to social media users, allegedly later retracted her statements indicating that “she was joking”.
Pictures of the alleged accuser who happens to be a minor and whose picture or name cannot be published by IOL especially as it has not been verified, have meanwhile been shared widely on social media.
It is also unclear if the schoolgirl in question is in fact the person who accused Sithole of raping her.
Meanwhile, Hoffman explained that the general South African population needs to understand the damage that false accusations, particularly of rape, could lead to and what the ramifications are.
“If someone claims that a neighbour raped them, they go open a case with the police.
“The family of the accused can also lay charges or sue you for the loss of support because the person is deceased,” he said.
National SAPS spokesperson Colonel Athlenda Mathe said anyone who falsely accuses another can be nabbed for crimen injuria.
“Crimen injuria is a crime under South African common law, defined to be the act of ‘unlawfully, intentionally and seriously impairing the dignity of another’.
“By making a false claim of rape, the person being accused of rape may lay a charge of crimen injuria against the person who falsely accused him or her,” said Mathe.
IOL