Last April Eudy Simelane, former star of South Africa‘s national female soccer team and one of the first openly lesbian South African equal rights campaigners was brutally gang-raped, beaten, stabbed to death by 25 knife blows, and thrown in a creek. In South Africa these rapes with intent to cure are growing increasingly more common while the national prosecuting authority sits criminally idle stating, “hate crimes — especially of a sexual nature — are rife, it is not something that the South African government has prioritized as a specific project.”
Apparently, the South African government finds other crimes, education, and HIV/AIDS prevention to be of a higher priority. A South Africa that continues to callously overlook the repercussions of allowing its citizenry to be sexually victimized is undermining any of its other efforts. How does one learn, turn away from a life of crime, or prevent the spread of AIDS if they can not leave the house for fear of being gang-raped or killed?
This article appears in March 13 • 2009.