Gender Inequity in South Africa: "correctional rape" against lesbian women

I have decided to more of the stuff I read on human rights in general on this blog, not just AI letters. Hopefully this will still be of interest to most readers.

This article in the Guardian is well worth a read. It starts off with talk about Caster Semenya -- the athlete asked to prove that she is female -- but quicly gets on to more general questions about gender roles in South Africa, and rape.

From the article:

Semenya might have been embraced with adulation this week, but another sportswoman who transgressed gender expectations has met a very different fate. Last year Eudy Simelane, who captained South Africa's women football team, was gang-raped and beaten, before being stabbed 25 times in the face, chest and legs. ...

Gay and lesbian activists said that Simelane – a 29-year-old politically active lesbian of supposedly "butch" appearance – was just the most high-profile victim of so-called "corrective rape". That is the rape of a lesbian by a man to punish or "cure" her sexual orientation.
...
Shocking research published last year by Triangle revealed that 10 cases of "corrective rape" are reported in South Africa every week. An astonishing 31 lesbians have been reported murdered in homophobic attacks since 1998 but only two cases have made it to the courts and there has been only one conviction. (Emphasis mine.)