Africa-Press – Lesotho. You are wrong if you think The Market’s statement about the alleged rape in their toilets is just terrible public relations or some error of judgment.
The statement reflects society’s attitude towards rape victims and women in general. That much is clear in the statement’s tone. The statement says the alleged victim was “heavily intoxicated” but the truth is that its author was drunk from both something illegal and prejudice.
Even someone who had drunk all the beer, ciders, cocktails, whisky, gin and brandy in The Market would not come up with such a statement. This is top-notch BS rehearsed over years and expertly mastered.
The Makhadzi dance to the alleged victim’s trauma. But there is more to show their contempt for the alleged victim. The one-page statement mentions the alleged victim’s name five times.
Five! It has 11 sentences and mentions the victim’s name in five of them. It is unethical to mention rape victims by name but The Market did it anyway because they probably wanted to remind everyone that she is “that woman”.
You can bet your last January kobo that some dunderheads will justify naming her on the basis that she had already identified herself by posting the incident on social media.
Nonsense! The Market had no right to identify her by name in their statement. They didn’t seek her consent. And even if they did, it’s still unethical.
To see that mentioning her name five times was not an innocent mistake you have to check how many times the statement mentions her alleged attacker‘s name.
Zero! This is despite that the alleged victim had revealed his name, or at least part of it, on social media. They call him “a staff member of one of the establishments at Maseru” and a “gentleman”.
They don’t even say the man is from one of the establishments at Maseru Mall because that would instantly narrow the list and expose him. So they resort to saying “Maseru” as if Maseru City is synonymous with Maseru Mall.
The idea was to keep his identity as vague as possible. Even if the alleged victim had not mentioned his name The Market knew him because the statement says he is “well known to The Market staff”.
There is a method to the madness here. The Market was at pains to protect the alleged attacker while loudly shouting the victim’s name. Ideally, neither the victim nor the suspect should have been mentioned by name.
She is a victim of rape and the suspect was yet to appear in court. Those with an eye for detail might have also noticed that The Market unashamedly tries to pretend to have suddenly discovered the woman’s rape allegations on her Facebook page.
She reported to their staff soon after the alleged incident. Muckraker will end this depressing story with one more observation. The Market’s statement mentions “toilets” as if they have many toilets.
The reality is that it’s one toilet for men and women. The main entrance is the same and so is the washing area. On busy nights you can use either of the cubicles.
Muckraker has seen men budging into the women’s cubicle and vice-versa. “Hona le motho!” is a common scream in that toilet. Muckraker has bumped into men with open zips and women pulling up their pants in the washing area.
Women fixing their bras bump heads with men tucking in their shirts. Whoever designed that toilet has a brain the size of the punctuation mark at the end of this sentence. There are no words for those who thought it fit to be used by their patrons.
Source:The Post
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