While news of the death of Bafana Sithole, a child in Grade 11 at Kriel Horskool in Emalahleni, Mpumalanga, has spread like wildfire online, the police and a legal expert have issued a warning about the potential repercussions for SouthAfricans of making false claims.
Advocate Paul Hoffman SC, director and head of projects at Accountability Now, believes that the scourge of gender-based violence and femicide in South Africa has reached a crisis point. As a result, when someone falsely accuses another person of rape, it causes extensive damage to the accused person’s reputation as well as emotional trauma.
His remarks come after a school learner named Sithole hung himself on the school grounds using a tie on Friday.
His mother received a note from him in which he detailed his suffering as a result of the allegations that were supposedly made against him by a classmate of his who, according to users of social media, purportedly later withdrew her claims and indicated that “she was joking.”
In the meantime, pictures of the supposed accuser, who also happens to be a kid and whose photo or name cannot be published by IOL especially because it has not been validated, have been widely disseminated throughout various social media platforms.
In addition, it is not apparent whether the student in question is in fact the same person who has accused Sithole of raping her.
In the meanwhile, Hoffman noted that the general populace of South Africa has to have a better understanding of the damage that false charges, particularly of rape, could lead to and the implications that are associated with such damage.
If a person alleges that a neighbor raped them, that person should report the incident to the authorities.
“The family of the accused can also lay charges or sue you for the loss of support because the person has passed away,” he said. “The deceased person’s estate can do either.”
Colonel Athlenda Mathe, a spokesperson for the National SAPS, stated that anyone who unjustly accuses another person can be arrested for the offense of crimen injuria.
Under the common law of South Africa, the act of ‘illegally, purposefully, and substantially impairing the dignity of another’ is considered to be the commission of the crime known as ‘crimen injuria.’”
According to Mathe, “By filing a false accusation of rape, the person who is being accused of rape may make a case of crimen injuria against the person who falsely accused him or her of doing the act of raping them,”
Learner from Mpumalanga allegedly says his final words to his mother after he is accused of raping her.
This past weekend, the hashtag #JusticeForBafanaSithole gained traction after it was revealed that a Mpumalanga learner had committed suicide after allegedly being falsely accused of rape. The news of the learner’s death came after it was reported that he had been falsely accused of rape.