Trying to Rape Gay People Straight Should Be a Hate Crime

If the phrase "corrective rape" sounds jarring to you, it should. It's a brutal concept whereby straight people think that LGBT folks can be "cured" through forced sex. The practice has become systemic and widespread in South Africa, particularly against the lesbian community, with upwards of ten new cases of corrective rape being reported each week. And that's just in Cape Town alone.

Yet despite its heinous and vile nature, corrective rape is not considered a hate crime in South Africa. And that's something that a small yet vocal group of women want to change.

Meet Luleki Sizwe, a charity organized in the townships of Cape Town, with the goal of providing immediate assistance to victims of corrective rape. As Benjamin Joffe-Walt writes on Change.org's Human Rights blog, Luleki Sizwe provides safe houses and medical care for victims, puts on trainings and educational programs, and fosters community for women who have either been victimized or live in fear of being attacked because of their sexual orientation. Now, Luleki Sizwe is focusing in on South Africa's Justice Minister, Jeffrey Thamsanqa Radebe, urging him to declare corrective rape a hate crime.

Nothing quite illustrates the urgency of Luleki Sizwe's campaign than the story of Millicent Gaika. Millicent was walking home on a Friday night, when she was approached by a man who asked her for a smoke. Within minutes, Millicent would be locked in an apartment as this man beat her, tortured her, screamed at her, and raped her for five hours.

"I know you are a lesbian. You are not a man, you think you are, but I am going to show you, you are a woman. I am going to make you pregnant. I am going to kill you," the man yelled at her.

Last month Millicent's assailant, Andile Ngcoza, was released on 60 rand bail, which is about the equivalent of $10.00. Meaning for the price of two large drinks at Starbucks, you can buy your way out of prison for raping a woman for five hours and threatening to kill her because she's lesbian.

Millicent's story is, tragically, one of many. So, too, is Eudy Simelane's, a champion lesbian soccer player who was gang raped by three men and stabbed in the face and chest 25 times. She was later thrown in a ditch, where authorities found her dead body. Or Anelisa Mfo's, a lesbian mother who was attacked in 2007 and raped by a man who held a gun to her head while calling her "slut" and "bitch."

Such brutality, and yet the government of South Africa doesn't recognize these acts as hate crimes?

Back in 2009, South Africa's national prosecuting authority went on record saying, "While hate crimes – especially of a sexual nature – are rife, it is not something that the South African government has prioritized as a specific project."

How many more attacks on women will it take before South Africa's government acts? Ten women raped each week in Cape Town isn't enough? Thirty-one lesbian women being murdered in the past decade, solely because of their sexual orientation, isn't enough? More to the point, how can South Africa's government live with the fact that for every 25 men accused of rape, a staggering 24 walk free?

Lend your voice to the work of Luleki Sizwe right here. In every sense of the word, corrective rape is motivated by violent hatred. It should be labeled as such, especially by a government that is supposed to represent one of the foremost human rights success stories of the past 30 years.

Photo credit: Luleki Sizwe