Simphiwe Dana, the award-winning musician, has appeared in court over counter-charges by her former-fiancé. Simphiwe had appeared in court after Leshoto Itsweng, her ex-fiancé, laid a counter-charge of assault and crimen injuria against Simphiwe Dana.
The musician had opened up about her experience in Norwood Police Station over a case of domestic violence. On December 30, she had laid charges of assault and discrimination at Norwood Police Station but was informed on the 13th of January that her ex-fiancé had also opened a charge of assault and crimen injuria against her.
Simphiwe did not wait for the police to arrest her. She turned herself in and was kept in a cell.
However, the case was dropped because the prosecutor did not want to proceed. The charges were described as being ‘flimsy.’ Simphiwe Dana related her recent experiences in court to her fans.
On the 16th of January, Simphiwe Dana had to appear in court after she handed herself to Norwood Police station.
She expressed how disappointed she was with the justice system. Simphiwe Dana stressed on the way they treat gender-based victims.
Simphiwe Dana said:
My experience has been a disturbing revelation about how the criminal justice system can be manipulated to revictimise and harass victims of intimate-partner abuse. There appears to be an increasing trend of abusers laying counter-assault charges against their victims as an intimidation tactic.
The cell I was held in bears testament to this- it was full of domestic violence survivors whose partners had laid counter-charges. This, as the abusers well know, has the immediate effect of bullying victims into dropping the charges against their assailants.
The swiftness with which the police respond to the countercharges by imprisoning the survivor serves to perpetuate inequality and revictimisation.
Simphiwe Dana has no plan of giving up. She plans to continue the case against her former fiancé, Lesotho.
