Raping lesbians to 'cure' them

Please be warned that this is a very graphic post and may be distressing for some readers.

Last Thursday a 13-year-old girl was raped in Pretoria, South Africa because she was a lesbian.

Last month, Noxolo Nogwaza, a well known activist, was found murdered in an attack that appeared to have been motivated by her being a lesbian.

More than 500 women a year are victims of Corrective Rape

What is corrective rape?

Corrective rape is the raping of a lesbian woman by a heterosexual man as a way of “curing” her of her sexual orientation.

Most of the victims are tortured, viciously assaulted and sometimes murdered. They are also prone to getting HIV/AIDS from the assault, and many of them commit suicide as a result of the “corrective rape”.

How often does it happen?
More than 500 women a year report being the victims of Corrective Rape in South Africa.

In the last 10 years:

*31 lesbian women have been murdered because of their sexuality
*More than 10 lesbians a week are raped or gang raped in Cape Town alone
*150 women are raped every day in South Africa
*For every 25 men accused of rape in South Africa, 24 walk free

What are the South African people doing?

Ndumie Funda has led a volunteer army (Luleki Sizwe) of less than half a dozen anti-‘corrective rape’ activists ever since her female fiancée was the a victim of ‘corrective rape’.

Ndumie works alone from an incredibly humble safehouse to rescue, support, feed and nurse to health survivors of ‘corrective rape’ in 10 Cape Town townships.

Last yeas South African authorities released Andile Ngcoza, a man who raped, bashed and strangled Millicent Gaika for five hours to ‘turn her straight’. Mr Ngcoza was released on 60 rand bail, the equivalent of less than $10.  Ndumie, who had helped Millicent recover from the rape and advocated for her case, went into  hiding.

From a new safehouse, Ndumie worked with volunteer supporters to send a formal letter to South Africa’s Minister of Justice Jeffrey Thamsanqa Radebe calling on him to declare corrective rape a hate crime and work to find solutions to the corrective rape epidemic.

When the minister did not reply, the women of Luleki Sizwe launched a petition. It soon became the most popular Change.org petition of all time, and has garnered more than 171,000 signatures* to date.

So now what ?

At the moment perpetrators are let out on ridiculously low bail rates (R60 which is the equivalent of around $8). Bureaucracy and third world processes mean that cases may take literally years to come to any conclusion. In the meantime many of these victims are forced to come into contact with their rapists every single day as they live in the same community or township

Hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation are not recognised by South African law but this week, government, parliamentarians and civil society groups held their first official meeting on the issue in Cape Town, which ended with the formation of a task force to better address the problem. Deliberations will begin on July 15.  The task force will  include six representatives from the judiciary and the police and social development, and six representatives from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community.

The team will be charged with developing a legislative intervention plan, a public awareness strategy, and LGBTI-sensitive shelters,” he said.

What can we do to help ?

You can follow the ‘corrective rape’ campaign by going to their Facebook page and clicking ‘Like’ at the top of the page

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