The house where the rape occured
It all started in the elevator of the media 24 building where I met a reporter from Drum magazine. She asked if I was interested in doing a story with her. Eager beaver that I am, I jumped on board. Really excited about the scoop I was about to be a part of it, we chatted and laughed as we drove to Gugulethu. In Gugu, I came face to face with the most stunning piece of journalistic inspiration I could have hoped for her, but eventually cried for.
Face to face with homophobic rape
Rape. Homophobia. I know these things exist. Now, I see it.
I see a 30 year old woman. She is slight and fragile. She wears men’s chinos and sturdy boots. A black beanie hides her shaven head. She turns her face toward me and I look into her eyes. They have been blackened. Under swollen eyelids, moist brown eyes swim in a sea of red- she was beaten repeatedly. Supposedly, she was taught a lesson. She has stitches above her eyebrow and a splint around her broken fingers. The scars on her neck were from when the rapist tried to strangle her. She rubs the welts constantly, unknowingly. It seems as if she is trying to erase the terrible memory.
It was 11 pm on Good Friday, the 2nd of April. The woman was walking down the street in Gugulethu, where she has lived her whole life. A cigarette in hand, she asked a man whom she knows for a lighter. He lit her cigarette for her, but smoked most of it. She reached for her cigarette; but he grabbed her arm and pulled her into his house. The rapist is an opportunist.
At 4 am the other tenants in the house could stand the screaming no longer. They had stopped believing the man who said he was fighting with his girlfriend. They kicked the door down and found Mary, lying naked on the floor. She had dirtied her pants and was bleeding all over. She recounts how she had lost consciousness at least once.
Before the ordeal began, the rapist said to her “You’re a boy, not a girl.” He pushed her down. Mary is swaying on the couch as she speaks to us. She looks down. I can’t understand Xhosa, but I can hear the intensity of her voice deepen. Then it cracks. “He said he wants to have my babies, and then, he said ‘I’m going to put you in a plastic bag and kill you.’”
I wish this was only the first time for this woman. Unfortunately, she was gang- raped by 5 men in 1998. Men that she was having a drink with, men that she thought were her friends. She didn’t report the rape, living in fear of the shame it might bring upon here family. An average of 10 cases of homophobic- related rape are reported in Cape Town every week, according to aid agency Action Aid. How many are not reported due to fear of shame? How many women are too afraid to tell their communities? And how many stories go unheard?
Ndumi Funda is caring for the raped woman. She runs the project called Luleki Sizwe, which provides shelter, counseling and support for lesbians in the community and woman who are victims of homophobic rape. “The police are useless” she says. The investigator was present at the crime scene on Saturday, but has not responded to the victim yet. Funda tells how her ex-partner was gang raped by men she knew. The case was reported but the offenders walked free. The police man told her to give him a call if she ever saw the men in the street. “She passed away as a result of a virus received from the rapists.”
The perpetrator in this case is still being held in prison. He has not received bail, as 80 picketing protestors ensured outside the Cape Town court on Monday morning. He has been charged with rape, assault and kidnapping. Funda wants charges to be laid for attempted murder. No state lawyer has as yet been assigned to the case.
In a country hailed for its non- discriminatory constitution, one can only wonder how corrective rape proceeds to be a growing phenomenon, particularly in townships where discrimination has always been a sensitive issue. Is lesbianism seen as a threat to the African man’s masculinity? Is he daunted by this woman with her sturdy boots and cropped hair? When he abuses her, does he really think he can “fix” her? Doesn’t he understand that there is nothing wrong?
He takes her life into his filthy hands and contributes to a widening rift in a society that hasn’t yet healed from its most recent strife. He thought he taught her a lesson; he only showed her the essence of cruelty. I learnt a lesson, a terrible one- that homophobia and rape are still rife, and easily justified by mere men who consider themselves superior.
