“I was raped in a hotel room by Danny Jordaan. There is no question about what happened and if he (Jordaan) wants to play on the nuances of that to imply in any way that it was consensual, then he is lying.”
This was the reaction from singer and former ANC MP Jennifer Ferguson to a statement issued by Jordaan’s lawyer yesterday denying Jordaan raped her in a Port Elizabeth hotel 24 years ago.
Speaking from Sweden to a local news channel, Ferguson said a third woman had come forward claiming she had also been raped by the South African Football Association (Safa) president.
“We are at the moment in a deep and concentrated conversation. I say we – three women – because Danny’s statement has come on the heels last night (Tuesday night) of a woman who has come forward.
"We have a second woman with a protected identity. Now we have a third woman with a protected identity who came forward with a statement and it was on the heels of this
statement.
“The timing of the statement is not coincidental. It’s not as if Danny has been sitting in remorseful contemplation at the state of what he called gender abuse in our country.
"There is real fear now, I think in Danny Jordaan’s party, that more revelations are going to be forthcoming,” said Ferguson.
Jordaan's lawyer, Mamodupi Mohlala-Mulaudzi, said in a statement: “Dr Jordaan denies that he raped Ms Ferguson. In light of the scourge of gender-based violence in this country and Dr Jordaan’s sensitivity toward the issue, he had to consider carefully his response, if any, in public to the allegations made by Ms Ferguson.
“Dr Jordaan’s perceived silence in the face of such serious allegations is because of his empathy with the victims of gender-based violence.
‘‘Dr Jordaan has, however, after careful consideration, decided to assert his innocence. In this case there were two opposing versions that should not be resolved in the media or anywhere else that attempted to substitute for a court of law.
“Mediation, as suggested by Ms Ferguson, runs the risk that the public will perceive that there is a cover-up away from the glare of public scrutiny; and that there is one law for the powerful and another for the masses,” said Mohlala-Mulaudzi.
Ferguson said she and the two other women would look for “other options” to find redress.
“Mediation would have been mediated in a very sensitive way that honoured the dignity ordinarily of the victims, the people around and the families,” she said.
“I cannot do it alone. I have got my family beside me, I have a community of friends and these two women, or maybe more.
"I have got a group of empowered legal people that are poised, but what I need more than anything is a sense that this particular case is not only about one night in PE, about me or two other woman, but it is a case that’s for South Africa and it is a case that is going to address the sickness, as Danny names it, in South Africa,” said Ferguson.
She called on South African men to come forward and be part of the conversation.
“I would have truly respected a personal statement where Danny could come up, not with the wall of lawyers, but personally in his own capacity, face South Africa and say ‘South Africa, I am one of many men and I have got a problem with my sexual
behaviour. What I do, I am not doing out of love but out of anger and I cannot control it.
"I am so afraid that I have to find distractions… my kind of sick distraction, and I need help’,” she said.
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