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SSA WORKER FIRED OVER FACEBOOK POST ON RAPE

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MBABANE – It took just one post to get thousands of social media users seething with anger and eventually costing a young man his job.


As South Africans try to stomach the shattering evidence given by one  Cheryl Zondo in the rape trial of PastorTimothy Omotoso, local facebookers used every word in the dictionary to blast and condemn what they termed an inhumane post allegedly written by an employee of the Swaziland Sugar Association (SSA).


It did not end with the condemning but the social media users went to an extent of contacting the SSA, editors of media houses and civic organisations, calling for action to be taken against him.


The post, which was written in a mixture of vernacular and English,  implied that there was nothing as funny as a woman who ignored a man courting her, when at the same time she was aware that he knew that she had recently been raped.


The account which posted the statement, used the name Mpendulo Perfectionist Simelane, whose page had logos of SSA and this is what made the social media users believe that he was employed by the company.        


So serious were the calls that the SSA found itself with no choice but to part ways with the employee who was in the company’s IT department.
It could not be ascertained as to how far the company went in as far as determining if the account indeed belonged to Simelane.


It was just after 10am when some of the social media users, including those on Twitter, started posting screen grabs of the posts condemning the content.
This was followed by a long letter directed to the SSA, which was shared all over the social media, especially on Facebook.
As the issue got heated up, the post was removed from the account, but it was a case of too little too late as screen grabs were being shared all over.


Stigma


“This open letter serves as a move towards challenging the stigma of being raped and it represents the first step that should ignite the public at large to reject placing blame on victims.


Mpendulo Simelane, who is allegedly your employee, posted the attached defamatory and degrading statements of all time about a woman who has suffered enough in the hands of a molester,” the letter stated.

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