Rape of Lesbians a Crisis in South Africa
"Corrective Rape" Targets Women Perceived as Lesbians in SA Villages
© Kat Long
Oct 13, 2008
In South Africa, same-sex marriage is legal and LGBT equality is the rule of the land—but lesbians are targets of an epidemic of rape and sexual assault by heterosexual men. “Corrective rape” is perpetrated by male rapists against lesbian or butch women in the belief that it will make lesbians heterosexual.
Such a crisis may seem surprising to gay Westerners, who are familiar with the LGBT media’s image of South Africa as an exotic and welcoming vacation destination. After the racist policy of apartheid ended in 1994, South Africans adopted a progressive national constitution in 1996 which banned discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Contrary to the socially conservative attitudes of neighboring countries, South Africa was the fifth country in the world (and only African nation to date) to legalize same-sex marriage in 2006. Tourism is one of the driving factors in the country’s economy, and in 2008 readers of Out Traveler magazine overwhelmingly voted South Africa as the sub-Saharan country they’d most like to visit.
The Dark Side of Paradise
But there is a pernicious dark side to South Africa’s gay-friendly image: it boasts the highest rate of rape in the world. The South African Police Service, which keeps crime statistics, reported nearly 55,000 rape cases in 2005, the last year for which statistics are official, or 117 rapes per 100,000 people.* Some experts estimate there were approximately 450,000 additional unreported cases.
Lesbians are undoubtedly included among the cases, although statistics are scarce and the ratio of lesbians among rape survivors is not known. Their fear, however, is anecdotally documented, especially among women living in the mostly black and working-class townships outside major cities like Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Durban. One woman interviewed by Human Rights Watch in 2003 said, “Lesbians are particularly targeted for gang rape…I don’t know what percent of [township-living] lesbians are targeted for ‘corrective rape’ action. Growing up, I never heard that lesbians were targeted in this way.”**
In May 2008, the South African Human Rights Commission issued a “Report on the Public Hearing on School-Based Violence,” and noted that “corrective rape” of lesbian students was “a growing phenomenon.” The report does not mention, however, if the survivors of “corrective rape” were self-identified lesbians, or perceived as lesbian by the male attackers.
Murders Make Headlines
Over the past two years, at least five lesbians have been raped and murdered in South Africa allegedly because of their sexual orientation. The most recent victim was Eudy Simelane, a 31-year-old former player for South Africa’s national women’s soccer team and a well-known activist for LGBT rights, who was raped and stabbed to death near Johannesburg on April 28, 2007. Five men are in custody for the murder, but the trial has been postponed numerous times and no start date has been finalized.
Simelane’s death has shone a harsh light on the progress toward women’s rights and LGBT equality in South Africa, and many activists hope “corrective rape” will cease to be tolerated in the near future.
