That headline caught your attention, huh?
I feel it extremely necessary for me to tell you the following story:
Millicent Gaika is a 30-year-old South African woman. On a Friday night, she was walking home with some friends after a night out. As they approached their house, a man outside asked if anybody in the group had a smoke. Millicent did. She stayed outside with the man, someone she knew, and allowed her friends to walk on.
A few minutes later, the man locked Millicent in his apartment, beat her, and raped her, screaming at her during the ordeal.
"I know you are a lesbian. You are not a man, you think you are, but I am going to show you, you are a woman. I am going to make you pregnant. I am going to kill you," the man yelled, as he raped Millicent for five hours, trying to make Millicent straight.
If you think this story sounds horrific, multiply it by 520, as that's the average number of stories of "corrective rape" reported in South Africa each year, according to ActionAid. And that number doesn't account for the dozens, if not hundreds of other cases of "corrective rape" not reported.
In South Africa, there is an epidemic of rape geared toward LGBT people, particularly lesbians, in an effort to turn them straight. Yet, while countless organizations and reports have labeled "corrective rape" a nationwide problem, South African authorities have not yet done enough to hold perpetrators accountable, and curb corrective rape's rising tide. It's time to demand justice now.
How much longer can the government stay silent in the face of this epidemic? Demand that South African President Jacob Zuma, and his Minister of Justice, make this a priority. With a quarter of all women being raped by the time they can drive a car, and upwards of 10 women per week coming forward to say that they've been raped in an effort to "turn them straight," South Africa cannot delay any longer.
Millicent Gaika's story is heart-breaking. As is Eudy Simelane's, Anelisa Mfo's and the countless others who have been swept up in South Africa's culture of rape. The crimes committed against them are horrible. Let's make sure that their pain and suffering didn't happen in vain.
Please, sign the Change.org petition to force this issue upon the government of South Africa. They currently have 1,369 signatures out of a necessary 1,500. Click Here to sign, I did.
Shawn
No comments:
Post a Comment