The Guardian and others have been reporting on the growing trend in South Africa where lesbians are raped and beaten in efforts to "correct" or "cure" their sexual orientation. And the authorities are not doing much about it.
After Eudy Simelane, the leading player on the Banyana Banyana national female soccer team was brutally raped and murdered last April, more awareness has been raised, but the prevalence of this horrific trend has only grown with it. One lesbian and gay support group in Cape Town says they get 10 new cases of "corrective rape" every week. And that's just in Cape Town.
And many of these cases result in murder, but with a barely existent conviction rate; there has only been one conviction out of 31 reported cases in the last decade. (The number of actual incidences are predicted to be much higher.)
In response, ActionAid and others have released a report, Hate Crimes: the rise of corrective rape in South Africa, bringing to light the prevalence of the "practice" as well as the failure of the South African legal system to take recourse; hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation is not recognized under South African law. On sentencing of Simelan's case, the judge said that her orientation had "no significance" in the murder.
Check out The Guardian's video of interviews with some survivors. (Trigger warning.)
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Because there's nothing that makes me want sex with a man more than getting raped.
Exactly what I was thinking!
Why, it's so effective, as soon as I heard the story on NPR, I immediately wanted to go have sex with a man! I didn't even need to be raped for it to be effective!
\sarcasm
I will never get corrective rape. I can get other forms of violent sexism, even if I despise the shit out of them. But I don't get this.
It's like satisfiction says: There's nothing that makes me want sex with a man more than getting raped. /sarcasm
This shit makes me so sad for so many reasons.
-.- feelin' it
Murders and rapes are committed for many different kinds of twisted reasons. How is one reason necessarily worse than the other? Can we really accept hate crime legislation?
I accept hate crime legislation because a hate crime is different than a crime committed for some other twisted reason because it serves to terrorize and intimidate all those who share whatever characteristic the person was murdered/raped for (sexual orientation, skin color, nationality, gender - whatever) - they affect a much higher number of people than just the victim and the family, and they serve to perpetuate terrible social problems. hate crimes don't happen in a vacuum, they happen in a world where certain groups are marginalized, dominated, etc...by others. hate crimes serve to keep that power dynamic alive in general while directly scaring the shit out of people and making their lives even more difficult than they already are. I could be more eloquent but im tired and i think you get my point :)
Then it would seem to me that there are ways to measure whether a particular motive meets the criterion of hate crime or not. I just haven't heard of these methods any more than I know how a crime can be reduced to one single cause.
I've been lukewarm about labeling crimes as hate crime. iheartchai's rationale for the labeling makes me warm up to it quite a bit.
Does anyone know if sentencing guidelines are the same for a hate crime as for the crime that was classified as based on hate? I do feel that rape is rape and murder is murder, and it is the same amount of wrong regardless whether it was hate motivated or not. I feel that greater sentencing guidelines for one vs the other would send a message that the type with the lesser sentence is somehow a lesser crime.
I oppose hate-crime legislation on principle. If someone commits a murder, they should be prosecuted for murder. The fact that they also terrorized some third parties, whether intentional (as in the case of gay bashing) or unintentional (as when people are frightened by a drive-by shooting they read about in the newspaper) seems unimportant compared to the victim who actually died. I have the same response to terrorism - just try people for mass murder, attempted murder, or whatever they did; we don't need special laws for terror.
Hate-crime legislation creates a double standard for justice - a certain kind of victim or motivation causes preferential attention. Justice should be blind.
Yes, thank you. This was the best reply yet.
I'm possibly playing the devil's advocate here, but crimes are crimes against society - not crimes against victims.
Obviously, most crimes incur victims (rape anyone?) though some have no victims (property crime being a fairly good example, with capitalism being the only thing making it look like there are victims). Hate crimes necessarily have more victims than parallel non-hate crimes, however, and as such they affect society much more negatively.
While it is possible to use the "hate" element as a means to establish a sentence (as it can give evidence of premeditation), I feel (because they injur society much more than crimes involving corresponding actions on the part of the accused without the hate motivation) that hate crimes should be treated as such - and as treated as worse than similar but less injurious crimes.
Is there anything we can do about this?
Doesn't that just create more problems, and an aversion to men?
I think the real issue is probably about creating fear and, consequently, controlling women's behavior. The woman who has been attacked will probably be less likely to openly engage in behavior the men don't like. In response to threats of sexual violence, women typically alter their behavior to avoid it, so other women who learn of these attacks will also be more likely to avoid the "offensive" behavior. I think the men would care more about limiting behavior they see as hostile to their interests rather than whether the attacked woman had actually been "corrected."
So women move there to get gay married, and then they have to put up with this bullshit?
I'm a South African born in Cape Town and lived here all my life. I'm no expert on rape stats and the causes of rape, least of all "corrective rape" but maybe I can give some perspective from a South African woman's point of view. It would take up too much space to say everything on my mind but here are a few thoughts.
South Africa is a multicultural country - European, Asian and African cultures are entwined, sometimes harmoniously and sometimes not. We straddle the first world and third world and we still carry the heavy legacy of the devastating damage wreaked by Apartheid. No matter what anyone tells you, the damage done by Apartheid will still linger for generations. I see it every day.
Rape is an ugly blight on our society and one which we should rightly be ashamed of. Our society, for all its gains, is still very much patriarchal. Just last night on the news I watched a segment about how in certain rural communities in the Eastern Cape province, girls as young as 12 are abducted and forced into marriage. Culture is often used as an excuse for certain practices that discriminate against and harm women, children and gays. Homosexuality is said to be "un-African" and a practice imported by Europeans. Not all South Africans feel this way of course but that sentiment runs deep amongst many people.
We live in a very violent society and I don't think one can discount the effect that has. Violence against women and children is depressingly normal, with only the worst cases getting into the news.
Our constitution is one of the most liberal in the world but our society is generally still very conservative. Gay rights were written into law over the objections of most people. Cape Town, funnily enough, is known as a "pink" city and has a large and visible gay community. We are perceived as being much more tolerant of gays than the rest of South Africa and I think that is a valid perception.
South Africa is rife with contradictions and it is often confusing for us, never mind outsiders, to try to figure out why we do what we do.
However, there are many people who are sickened by this trend of "corrective rape". I am one of them and I know many people who feel the same way. Our leaders need to speak out emphatically and they don't. Jacob Zuma, the man who will most likely be our president after the April elections was acquitted of rape charges a few years ago and there are many who think he did it and that his acquittal signalled that it's ok for powerful men to rape. Recent comments by ANC Youth League leader, Julius Malema, bolster those opinions.
I don't know if anything I've written here is of value to you or even makes sense. The situation is so complex that all I can do is give you a very small window into our society. There are many brave people working every day to combat the scourge of rape but ultimately I think it is up to every South African citizen to change our mindsets - a cultural and societal revolution if you will.
While I think its great that more people are becoming aware of this issue, I think it should be pointed out that Eudy Simelane is only the latest in a long line of horrific incidents including: Sizakele Sigasa, Salome Masooa, Simangele Nhlapo and Madoe Mafubedu.
If readers are interested in what they can do to help, they should be aware of organizations within South Africa, such as the Forum for the Empowerment of Women, and the Gay and Lesbian Archive, that are specifically working to reduce the stigma that lesbians face living in townships.
That made me cry so much. You can't correct something if there isn't a problem. "Correcting" lesbianism only creates more hate. The first post for this was the best. That was exactly what I was thinking when I read this.
Among several other things wrong with this... this just shows how uncomfortable men are with women having any sort of power. Or just having the SAME rights as men I should say. Heaven forbid I say "power" and it makes it sound like women have the upper hand.
There is such an emphsis on men needing to be manly and they think they are. But these men (of course not all men) are just cowards. If they weren't so threatened they wouldn't feel the need to cause harm to these women.
I don't hear about these men "correctively raping" gay men. Oh no, because that would take away the "manliness" they're currently (always) having a power trip on.
I know violence against anyone is not right... even these bastards... but this really makes me want to get a group of lesbians (or anyone against these bastards) together and beat these men up hardcore. Anyone with me? .... sarcasm of course... or unfortunately? *sigh*
Among several other things wrong with this... this just shows how uncomfortable men are with women having any sort of power. Or just having the SAME rights as men I should say. Heaven forbid I say "power" and it makes it sound like women have the upper hand.
There is such an emphsis on men needing to be manly and they think they are. But these men (of course not all men) are just cowards. If they weren't so threatened they wouldn't feel the need to cause harm to these women.
I don't hear about these men "correctively raping" gay men. Oh no, because that would take away the "manliness" they're currently (always) having a power trip on.
I know violence against anyone is not right... even these bastards... but this really makes me want to get a group of lesbians (or anyone against these bastards) together and beat these men up hardcore. Anyone with me? .... sarcasm of course... or unfortunately? *sigh*
These men are either uneducated or extremely naive if they actually believe that their actions are justified. South African law needs to be more strict on areas such as this. If they refuse to act with severe punishment they are giving an idea of hope to all these men that there actions are correct through effectiveness. This is the exact opposite of the message that their nations leaders should be sending them.