Wilgenhof has been allowed to exist as a place of exception for far too long, a place where some men created their private world, and, invisible behind black hoods, exercised power to humiliate and degrade others.

Listen to this article 7 min Listen to this article 7 min In her landmark book about violence and its aftermath, Trauma and Recovery, Harvard University psychiatrist Judith Herman writes that perpetrators use a range of strategies to evade accountability, doing everything in their power "to promote forgetting".

Secrecy and silence are their strategy to avoid taking responsibility for the traumatic impact of their actions. If their deeds are exposed, Herman informs us, "the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim ... (and) marshals an impressive array of arguments, from the most blatant denial to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalisation".

The goal is to erase what is visible in plain sight, and as Herman says, to try to convince us that "it never happened, the victim lies, the victim exaggerates... and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on".

In its 15th printing since it was first published in 1992, the groundbreaking insights of Judith Herman's book resonated worldwide, with translations into more than 20 languages.

As I continue to read some of the reactions to the Recommendations of the panel appointed by the Stellenbosch University (SU) Rectorate to investigate Wilgenhof...