Corrective rape’ and murder of gay rights activist points to a new apartheid

Across South Africa a rising tide of rape and violence is being used to suppress lesbian women.

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Trial moved to avoid media spotlight in a country where one-in-four women are sexually assaulted

EUDY SIMELANE was the midfield star and captain of South Africa's international women's football team. Following her retirement from playing, she coached four teams in her home township of Kwa-Thema, 45 miles southeast of Johannesburg, and was qualifying to become her country's first professional woman referee.

Simelane was one of the first South African women to live openly as a lesbian and had become a celebrity gay rights activist. For this, she paid with her life. The prosecution's case against five men charged with gang raping, torturing and murdering Simelane, in what has been described as a "corrective rape" assault, ended on Friday. The defence begins its case on August 26.

Corrective rape - in a country where more generalised rape is virtually out of control, with one-in-four women having been violated by the age of 16 - is a form of punishment inflicted on lesbians to "cure" them of their sexual orientation.

In South Africa no woman is safe from violence," said a coalition of women's rights organisations in a report on rape co-ordinated by the non-governmental organisation ActionAid South Africa.

"The country's war against its women continues unabated, with an estimated half a million rapes, hundreds of murders and countless beatings inflicted every year. For every 25 men prosecuted for rape in South Africa, 24 walk free."

The most prominent man to be acquitted was President Jacob Zuma, tried in 2006 for the rape of an HIV-positive woman.

Zuma said in his defence that the woman was wearing a loose skirt and that "in Zulu culture you cannot leave a woman if she is ready".

Zuma's supporters outside the court chanted: "Burn the bitch." Zuma was acquitted and his accuser fled into exile in The Netherlands. Before his trial Zuma denounced gays as "a disgrace to the nation and God".

So guarded is the Zuma ANC government about epidemic sexual violence and the growth of "corrective rape" that it moved the trial of Eudy Simelane, who was 31 when she was murdered last year, to a small country town, Delmas, about 70 miles east of Johannesburg, to avoid publicity.

The ploy has worked. The penniless and often lazy South African media have virtually ignored what the worldwide gay community and many human rights organisations regard as a landmark trial. Domestic and international human rights activists have supplied foreign journalists with reports of the trial's progress.

The irony is that the apartheid government in the 1980s and early 1990s also moved trials of anti-apartheid activists to Delmas to avoid publicity.

By the time the prosecution rested its case many facts had been established.

Five youths in their 20s attacked Simelane, attempted to rape her to make her a "real woman", stabbed her 25 times and left her semi-naked body face down in a ditch just 200 yards from the home where she lived with her parents.

Three of the youths have pleaded not guilty and one turned state witness. The fifth youth pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 32 years' imprisonment.

Despite scores of corrective rapes - Triangle, a South African gay rights group, reports an average of 10 corrective rapes each week - this was the only conviction so far for one of these offences.

The wooden cross, put where her body lay on the morning of 28 April 2008, is a further symbol to remember Simelane and the many others who died in similar circumstances and motives across South Africa. It is a reminder of the struggles faced by those who survived death and who continue to live in fear for their lives.

"Eudy's openness makes her brutal murder all the more disheartening," said a Triangle spokeswoman.

Mpho Skosana, Simelane's 24-year-old male cousin who grew up with the victim, said: "She was strong; she would have fought back. So, to me, you don't rape a woman like that unless you want to mark that person, saying, That's a woman I want to teach something'."

Throughout the trial so far, some 200 people have maintained vigil outside the Delmas court, brandishing posters saying "Eudy, we'll never forget" and "Women's rights are human rights".

The Simelane trial is an important test case for the country's newly appointed police chief Bheki Cele, a close Zulu friend of Zuma. He has no experience as a policeman and is better known for his flamboyant all-white suits accompanied by white fedoras and shoes. He has previously said that he believes policemen have a right to "shoot to kill".

Among the many corrective rapes for which no men have been brought to trial were the killings in Soweto of lesbian couple and prominent gay activists Sizakele Sigasa, 34, and Salome Masooa, 23.

Sigasa was shot six times in her head and collarbone and her underpants were tied round her throat. Masooa was shot through the back of her head.

Gay rights organisations said the killings were driven by "lesbo-phobia". Zaneli Muholi, a community relations officer with a gay rights organisation, said: "It is being both black and gay that is problematic.

"Rape and violence against lesbians is common. The problem is largely that of patriarchy. The men who perpetrate such crimes see rape as curative and as an attempt to show women their place in society."

Gays and lesbians theoretically have constitutional protection in South Africa. Elsewhere in black Africa being gay is considered un-African, un-Christian, anti-family and a product of witchcraft.

Fred Bridgland - http://www.sundayherald.com/