As an individual who is well educated in law, I appreciate the seriousness of the crime of rape and the damage a false claim of rape fetches the accused. Therefore, I want to start by making it clear that the accusations made by the women in this matter have not been proven to the required criminal standard, of beyond reasonable doubt—and this means the alleged rapist- CEO of Caveman Watches-Anthony Dzamefe, is no rapist in law, at least as of today.
However, the fact that a court has not found a person guilty or that criminal proceedings have not been brought against an accused, does not mean those who have alleged that their individual autonomies have been sexually violated, are liars—and it does not also mean that their allegations should be completely disregarded or be wholly treated as false. – Chris-Vincent Agyapong
It’s a conundrum we cannot win either way. But in the interest of giving voices to those who claim to have been wronged and to foster a wider conversation on what can be loosely termed the African ‘rape culture,’ I’ve decided to publish this piece, springing out of my conversations with two Ghanaian women who have alleged that Anthony Dzamefe has raped them.
Rape is not a joke but it’s also confusing to a lot of men and even women. Some women have been raped, without knowing—and some men also rape women, without really considering their actions as rape.
There has to be a compulsory conversation on this topic if we are all going to be having sex—especially those of us who are freaks behind the curtains.
Rape simply means having sexual intercourse with another without the person’s consent. What separates rape from acceptable sex, is consent.
Consent is affirmative and it bothers on freely given agreement. While consent does not need to be always expressed verbally, and may sometimes be overtly implied from actions, absence of an objection to sex does not constitute consent in any form. The maxim “Qui tacet consentit” which in law means “Silence gives consent” does not apply to rape—as silence does not mean consent when it comes to sex.
Mary Brittle, a Ghanaian facebook user alleged a few days ago that Anthony Dzamefe is a rapist and this is because the man who is known for his emerging watch brand had raped her in his house.
In-between the various social media conversations, Anthony Dzamefe finally released a statement, albeit late, stating that the accusations against him are false. Mary insists that what she is saying is true—leaving observers to take sides, based on unknown factors.
About 5 days ago, Mary Brittle added me on Facebook. Despite having a long list of pending requests, I accepted her friend’s request as I was interested in her allegations—and soon, we started chatting.
According to Mary, she is currently going through counselling and she has been advised by her lawyers to be circumspect with her statements. But she open to having a conversation with me, though I think she was economical with some of her answers.
I asked her this: where did you meet Anthony Dzamefe—and how did your relationship start?
She replied, that, they were never in a relationship. It was a mere friendship and it all started on Facebook when Anthony messaged her.
I wanted to find out if she knows of any reason why Anthony chose to message her, in particular, considering that Facebook has millions of women. She said she does not know and that soon after his message, they started chatting—with him being the one who was keenly interested in the chats.
They went for a movie date and that went well. Anthony then asked to take her out for swimming—she agreed. And then went to Erata Hotel at East Legon for the swimming. They even had food at the hotel which Anthony paid for, as well as the swimming.
After the swimming, she was not feeling really well and because they were close to Anthony’s place of residence (somewhere close to Adenta), she decided to go to his house with him, take some pills and relax for a few hours until she is better to go to her own house, at Dansoman.
They were friends, so she didn’t think much of the above arrangement, I believe.
In Anthony’s house, Mary alleges that she was raped twice, and this includes anal sex. She did not agree to any sex, let alone anal.
After the rape including the anal rape, Mary told me that: “I got infected because he had anal sex with me. I called him and ask if he’s sick or something and [that] this is how I am feeling. He sent me 200gh to go for check-up. I went for injection and the thing stopped but in few days it started again.”
When I asked Mary how Anthony sent her the 200 GHS, she said via mobile money—so I asked her for a screenshot as evidence of such amount having been sent to her from Anthony. She sent me the attached screenshot, to confirm that indeed Anthony sent her 200 GHS as claimed.
According to Mary, when she got infected, she asked Anthony for his snap handle—and then “took a picture [of the infected anus] and sent him a live picture.”
To demonstrate that she is not lying about the above, Mary sent me a screenshot of her message to Anthony in which she asks him for his snapchat handle and states that she wants to show him something—to which Anthony provides the handle.
After sending the photo of the infection to Anthony, Mary told me that: “He then called and started apologizing but it didn’t sound like he’s sorry for what he has done, he was worried about his reputation. I was ashamed and confused, and didn’t know how to tell anyone about what happened to me.”
Mary added: “Even my friend can testify I had an infection around my anus.”
The Second woman:
When I announced on Facebook that I was contemplating on writing a piece from my conversation with Mary about Anthony allegedly raping her, another woman, who agreed to speak to me only if I would grant her anonymity in my write up reached out to me.
This woman was confused as to whether she was even raped. According to her, it was many years ago—and the meeting was on Facebook too.
She said, she liked Anthony and wanted a relationship but Anthony told her he was not interested in a relationship. So one day, she visited him and they had sex. For that, she consented to the sex.
However, she realised indeed Anthony did not want to be her boyfriend and therefore also told herself that she cannot be having sex with a man who does not want to be with her. However, she remained friends with Anthony and they kept communicating. It was when Anthony invited her again to his house that he allegedly raped her.
She wrote to me: “Most men when they make sexual passes at women and the women resist in their head they say to themselves ‘she wants me she’s just being coy, playing hard to get. I know she will enjoy this sex.’ They forget the fact that a woman needs to be mentally and emotionally prepared for any kind of sexual intercourse otherwise it holds no meaning at all.”
“So for the past week I have been asking myself if I was raped or not, did I make light of it because he was something I was acquainted to?. He didn’t force me to come to his house, he asked me and I responded. No, I didn’t go proactively dressed, neither did I go expecting sex. I had known Anthony Dzamefe a while and trust me when I tell you, he is a perfect gentleman, treats you right, says all the nice things”, the woman added.
She continued: “Who doesn’t like a nice guy to pay attn to her? And trust me he paid a lot of attention to me. On the day of the visit, I sat on his bed, we began to struggle, let me cut it short, when he was done I hurriedly got up and went to sit on his toilet and as cum dripped out of my vagina I cried. I didn’t know if I had been raped or my friend just forced himself on me. I wiped my eyes, went back in talked to him till it was time to go home.”
“In all honesty that was the first time we were having sex. But I cannot give you that detail because if I do I would be exposed. We were friends and I thought we would be more but after hooking up the first time he told me he wasn’t looking for a relationship, I knew then I had made a mistake and so after licking my wounds I decided to move on. But it didn’t end there. Anthony is a very sexual being, and I can tell most people defending him don’t know this. He looks like the perfect gentleman but believe me when I tell u he’s a “freak”. And so we stayed in touch. Him more than me, in [my] head I thought he was gonna come around but he never did and I lived in service of his sexual pleasure after the incident I can’t even define as rape or not.”
I have heard the voices of both women on the phone so I can testify that they are not ghosts—they are real people who feel hurt and damaged by what they claim happened.
That’s their stories—they may not be able to establish it to the required standard in court but this in itself does not mean it did not really happen as they may not have the required evidence or even the strength to go to court.
The stories do not also mean Anthony actually is a rapist—he says he is not. The law and natural justice demand that we presume him innocent until proven guilty.
Whatever it is, Mary has made a damaging allegation, another person has somewhat said Anthony did the same to her. We may never know what actually took place in Anthony’s bedroom except to continue a wider conversation on sex and consent.
Anthony’s reputation is at stake, if not already in the gutter. Having a reputation to protect does not mean we cannot comment or hold a conversation on allegations levelled against you. People who have reputation have to be extra careful in life and in all honesty, I don’t think Anthony has been.
Click “PHOTOS” for more screen shots of the conversation between the second victim and Anthony
