Article: Melinda Ferguson from True Love
Image: City Press

In July 2007, 34-year-old Sizakele Sigasa and 23-year-old Salome Masooa – a lesbian couple – were bound, raped and shot execution-style after leaving a party in Meadowlands, Soweto. About 18 months earlier on 4 February 2006, Zoliswa Nkonyana, 19, was also killed on the Cape Flats. An angry mob of 20 young men stoned and beat her to death with golf clubs. The reason: her sexual orientation. Although statistics are scarce, Wendy Isaacs, a legal adviser at the local gender rights group POWA (People Opposing Women Abuse), says a black lesbian is killed in townships every three months and at least 10 have been killed since 2006.

"Our black sisters in townships and rural communities are continued targets of 'corrective rape', verbal, sexual and physical abuse, and violence. They are trapped by a collective oppression of sexism, homophobia, hetero-normative values and patriarchal structures," members of the Triple Seven Campaign, which was formed on 7 July 2007 by a network of 25 gay, lesbian and human rights organisations, said in a statement following the murders of Sigasa and Masooa – themselves women and gay rights activists. Despite one of the most liberal constitutions in the world, supposedly protecting and granting freedoms to all people in South Africa, the ugly reality of prejudice and homophobia is rearing its head far too often in this hard-fought democracy.

"I think there is still a lot of prejudice in this country," says Musa Ngubane from Behind The Mask, an online gay and lesbian news site. "We are extremely conservative as a nation even though we have this liberal constitution. I don’t think there has been enough interaction between government and the communities, and that is why people have not been prepared for these freedoms. Many people feel left behind and have remained very conservative, homophobic and xenophobic."

Phumi Mtetwa, executive director of the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project, agrees: "This country is going through a major social, economic and political crisis. We have got to ask ourselves where our constitution is in all of this? Where is ubuntu in all of this? Where is it really? When we look at the killing of lesbians and foreigners we see how little this concept of ubuntu means. When we wrote this constitution, it was to give people individual rights. People like gay people, were supposed to be given the right to choose and live freely. But what we didn’t do was transform society, or the conditions people lived in. So in many ways this constitution is like a rainbow ideal, but out of touch with what is happening on the ground."

Many human rights activists agree that even though important, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) didn't completely fulfil its aims to appease an abused and damaged nation. "The TRC was a necessary step, but it should have gone much further," says Mtetwa. "There was blanket forgiveness but we didn’t go deeply into the pains people went through, like losing their loved ones.

Carrie Shelver of POWA also concurs: "Although the TRC was important, in many ways we have taken shortcuts in finding solutions to South Africa's past problems. The wounds of the past have not been adequately addressed and now we see these wounds festering. South Africans are not ready to allow fellow South Africans their respective freedoms and women are defi nitely having their rights impinged on. We don’t know what equality actually means."

Who is to blame?
"South Africa as a nation has its own perception of what it means to be African," adds Musa Ngubane from Behind The Mask. "It does not include the idea that women can love and have relationships with each other. South Africans often think the only way to be is South African. They (men) must control women as their partners; women must listen to them and women must serve them. If you are anything else, there is something wrong with you."

Wendy Isaacs of POWA agrees: "Many South Africans are homophobic and this attitude is often coupled with the myth that homosexuality is un-African. Lesbians and transgender women are perceived to be threatening the 'normal' social order by seeking to exercise autonomy over their bodies and sexuality. By defying the heterosexual norm, they are seen to be provoking moral condemnation, exclusion and often violence."

The Lesbian and Gay Equality Project's Phumi Mtetwa explains: "Patriarchy entrenches very strong roles, and men are given power to decide what the role of women must be. A woman in this system has no rights. It starts from childhood. Boy children are treated as more important compared to girl children. This is a century old system – it's not only in African cultures, it's also in white communities. The man is all-powerful. It's all about control. The war is being waged on women's bodies, what you wear, who you love, where you go. Some men are trying their utmost to control all these things."

Ngubane believes when some men get into groups, traditional and conservative ideals are often expressed in violent ways. "They get this sense of entitlement and a need to assert themselves."

What is corrective rape?
In a document titled "Crimes Of Hate And Prejudice Against Black Lesbians", Wendy Isaacs of POWA writes: "Curative or corrective rape is a term used to describe the sexual violence perpetrated for the purpose of supposedly 'curing' a person of their real or perceived sexual orientation and/or gender identity." The Triangle Project's Vanessa Ludwig says: “These men believe it is their right to 'cure' or 'correct' lesbian women because they see access to women’s bodies as their right."

With more women determining their own lives and finances, and therefore threatening the patriarchal system, corrective rape and assault has become more common.

Worryingly, our schools are not immune to the "corrective rape" phenomena. In March 2008, the South African Human Rights Commission released a report voicing their concern that corrective rape was on the increase.

How do you feel about corrective rape and homophobia? Share your views below.