The Phenomenon of Corrective Rape in South Africa

Corrective rape, for those who haven't heard the term (it's less than ten years old, since it was just recently coined by human rights activists) is the criminal phenomenon where LGBT people, especially lesbians, are raped by a member of the opposite sex as a means of trying to "correct" their sexual orientation.   It's a particularly vile practice, and while it's not exclusive to South Africa, the country has become especially notorious for it.  So notorious in fact, that the Triangle Project, a South African LGBT organization, is now saying that they deal with up to ten new cases of "corrective rape" each week.

The scarier part?  Most people who are "correctively raped" never come forward, perhaps out of fear, shame, or because their "corrective rape" was fatal.

Sharon Cox, a staff member at Triangle, told the BBC that rape is a sign of power which straight people, most especially straight men, can use to further suppress women and lesbians.

The thinking is, all it takes is one good man to cure you of being a lesbian.

That thinking is what took the life last year of Eudy Simelane, an acclaimed Banyana Banyana national female soccer (football) star in South Africa.  Her athletic fame and abilities couldn't prevent the fact that a violent group of men saw her as nothing more than a lesbian who needed her sexual orientation raped out of her.  She was gang-raped by at least three men, stabbed twenty-five times in the face and chest, and thrown into a creek on the outskirts of Johannesburg, where her body was later found.

Simelane's trial started this past week, with three men accused of committing the crimes against her.  In South Africa, so far only two cases of "corrective rape" have ever been put before a court, and there's been only one conviction.  Talk about a culture of impunity.  South Africa's national prosecuting authority even had this to say about the lack of prosecutions for men who rape women to cure them of their lesbianism:

While hate crimes – especially of a sexual nature – are rife, it is not something that the South African government has prioritised as a specific project.

Because of that fact, many human rights organizations have urged the criminal justice system to recognize "corrective rape" as a hate crime, and prosecute it as such.  Curbing the rising tide of "corrective rape" will only happen with a concerted effort by the criminal justice system to prosecute offenders, and end the culture of impunity that says a man who rapes a lesbian to cure her of her sexual orientation is macho, not a criminal.

That culture might be a tough one to crack, though.  South Africa has one of the highest rates of sexual violence in the world, with more than 54,000 sexual assaults reported each year (and again, those are only the ones reported).  And according to this BBC article, rape has become almost a game for many South African men - so much so that celebrated terms have popped up to crown a man who initiates a gang rape.  Which might explain why 1 in 4 men have admitted to being involved in rape, a figure thta seems to defy comprehension.

As for the trial of Eudy Simelane, the state closed its case this past Friday, after a raucous week of hearings where the state's main witness recanted some information he initially told police about who and how many people were involved in her rape and death.  That chaos seems to echo the growing culture of wheelings and dealings that seem to take place in South Africa to keep rapists on the streets.

The next phase of the trial will take place on August 26, when the three men accused of Eudy's rape and killing will be heard.  Meanwhile, LGBT rights organizations have called for the three men to receive the maximum sentence for their crime.

"We are calling for them to be found guilty and get a maximum sentence for each count," said Phumzile Mtetwa, spokesperson for the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project

The blog Black Looks has done a tremendous job of covering the trial.  Check them out for more information on the case of Eudy Simelane.  Though it will be another three weeks or so until we know where the trial stands, it's clear that the trial will have large implications for all of South Africa.  If the offenders are found to be guilty, their conviction will send the message that it's not manly to find a lesbian, taunt her, and then rape her with your friends in order to change her orientation.  Instead, it will send the message that this type of practice not only isn't manly, it's illegal, disgusting, and against the law.