Emily
Mike
Eudy Simelane
This Wednesday, three men will go on trial for the rape and murder of Eudy Simelane, South Africa’s openly gay female football star. In April 2008, Simelane was found dead after being gang raped, beaten, and stabbed 25 times. Her murder was declared a hate crime, a brutal and tragic example of the widespread South African problem with “corrective rape.”
Corrective rape is the name given to the heinous crime of raping lesbians, or women perceived to be “butch,” with the intention of “fixing” them and turning them straight. Although accurate statistics are scarce for obvious reasons, there have been 31 reported rape-and-murders of lesbians in South Africa since 1998. Only two cases have made it to court, and there has been only one conviction.
Rape is undoubtedly a very real concern for women in every country, but South Africa has a particularly frightening record when it comes to sexual assault. According to Schott’s Vocab blog at the NYT,
[There are an] estimated 500,000 rapes, hundreds of murders [of women] and countless beatings inflicted every year. For every 25 men accused of rape in South Africa, 24 walk free.
Despite South Africa’s LGBTQ equality laws, including legalized same-sex marriage, in practice the country is often only nominally supportive of gays and lesbians.
Support groups say that rape is fast becoming the most widespread hate crime targeted against gay women in townships across South Africa. One lesbian and gay support group says it is dealing with 10 new cases of lesbian women being targeted for “corrective” rape every week in Cape Town alone.
The South African Ministry of Justice has released a statement, saying:
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.
Will Simelane’s high-profile name force the South African DOJ to pay necessary attention to this despicable phenomenon? We can hope so.
Contact information for the South African Ministry of Justice can be found here.
Filed under: GLBT, International, Law, Violence | Tagged: corrective rape, eudy simelane, lgbt, Rape, south africa
[...] on South African “Corrective Rape” Murder Posted on September 25, 2009 by Emily As I wrote about a couple months ago, Eudy Simelane, South Africa’s openly gay female football star, was brutally raped and [...]