Why we don’t publish the name of rape victims

In March of this year, Zerlina Maxwell went on Fox News and argued that as a rape survivor, she believed the best way to reduce rape was to teach men to stop raping.

The responses she got included people telling her she deserved to be raped, and the she was why white men needed to be armed.

That same month, a University of Carolina Chapel Hill student started the process of suing the school. She had allegedly  been raped, and the school had allegedly responded to the case by threatening her with expulsion.

In April, in India, The UK Times reported on a 10 year old who had been raped. The girl’s neighbours were threatening her with death if she didn’t drop the allegations.

Back to the US, in May two girls were found guilty of threatening to kill a 16 year old rape victim in Steubenville, for bringing her case forward.

This month a grade 10 student who had been raped in Ghaziabad committed suicide – after repeated threats aimed at making her withdraw her case.

Naming the victim in a rape case is unethical, because really we know exactly what happens when the suspect in the case has any sort of power.

We know because it happened to the woman who alleged that President Jacob Zuma raped her. It doesn’t matter that the president was found not guilty, because this isn't really about the president.

It is about the people who responded to her allegations by threatening her to the point that she had to leave the country.

There is a definite tendency by some people to punish those who challenge the powerful, and this tendency is made most clear in rape cases.

Zwelinzima Vavi as the head of South Africa’s largest union is consequently one of our country’s most powerful figures. He has a following that spans our entire nation.

Whether he raped or sexually harassed his accuser, publishing her name was not an acceptable thing for Cosatu to do on their website.

The effect of doing so ran the risk of punishing the victim in a crime.

We as a country are no better than the US or India when it comes to rape, in fact if you look at our rape statistics we are particularly bad when it comes to this sort of thing.

If we are going to reduce rape in this country we need to understand that we cannot paint bulls-eye style targets on the backs of rape victims. We have to respect their right to anonymity.