Corrective rapes

I’d like to tell you something about corrective rapes

The partially clothed body of Eudy Simelane a player of the national female football squad, was found in a creek in a park in Kwa Thema, near Johannesburg. Simelane had been gang-raped and brutally beaten before being stabbed 25 times in the face, chest and legs. She was one of South Africa's best-known female footballers, Simelane was a equality rights campaigner and one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian in Kwa Thema.

Last saterday I was downstairs hanging haging on the sofa with my sister, watching tv and we were both shocked when we saw on NL-2 De schaduw zijde van het paradijs.

It concerned the ghetto in South Africa called the Khayelisha, near Kaapstap, the capitalcity of South Africa.

I knew there were a lot of problems in South Africa, no food, no schools for children, but I never heard about corrective rapes. Corrective rapes means raped en killed for being a lesbian. Of course not only in the Khayelisha ghetto does this happen, but everywhere in South Africa. Gangs of men try to rape lesbian girls, to heal them from being a sick lesbian. On this way they tried to make them interested in men.

After the brutal murder of Simelane the violence against the lesbians in South Africa has continued to rise. Simelane was one of the first women, who was a victim of this horrible rapers, behind the guise of trying to ‘cure’ lesbians oftheir sexual orientation.

These girls can’t do anything, no one is standing on their side.

Even the women in teir own ghetto aren’t helping them and their parents don’t recognize their own daughters as family. The police will do also nothing for them, there even is rapport, the criminal justice system of South Africa, what calls to recognise hate crimes, including corrective rape, as a separate crime catogory. What means that the perpetrators are always right. I think, expect the black lesbian campaigners, there also should be black outsiders, who are helping these girls. If there were any organisations for these black lesbians, it would make their life in South Africa much better! At this moment there are many little organisations runned by black lesbians theirselves, but this is not enough. They can’t help themselves. They should get some protection, everyday they have to life in danger.. Everyweek there are 10 new cases of corrective rapes. Bot only lesbians are victims. Everyday 150 women are raped. 64 of them are not even 18 years old. And all the rapers continueing, because they can’t be punished if the law will not change. Only one the perpetrators is arrested now, but the others are still free to continue raping. I think, there has to come a new rapport a new law what protect these girls and punished the rapers. Because everybody has to be free, free in mind, religion and sexuality. We can’t jugde people on their sexuality, and punish them because they are gay!