“Indeed in rape cases it is the victim who is most often placed on trial rather than the perpetrator, accused of having ulterior motives and subjected to degrading questions with often pornographic overtones. Prosecutors might fail to adequately address the victims needs and all too often, information is either intentionally or unintentionally withheld from victims.” The victims of sexual offences have to face not only the consequences of the sexual crime that was perpetrated upon them, but they also have to deal with the effects of the criminal justice system. Victims who take part in the criminal justice system should not be exposed to unnecessary distress and trauma. The victims of sexual offences must not be re-victimised by the criminal justice system. Re-victimisation has been coined to describe the experience where victims are subjected to further victimisation by the very state organs to whom they turn for assistance. This has the effect that the victim is victimised twice, first by the offender and then by the criminal justice system. It is therefore the duty of the law to protect this group of witnesses from such a traumatic and damaging experience. The question that needs to be answered in this research is whether the Sexual Offences and Related Matters Amendment has made any difference in respect of protection of victims sexual crimes. It was concluded that the Sexual Offences Act is indeed a step in the right direction to protect the rights of victims of sexual offences but that it could have afforded more protection.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:10181 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Dipa, Asanda |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Law |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, LLM |
| Format | iii, 50 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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