A Cape Times report says a man who raped a lesbian in 2010 has been sentenced to 22 years in jail, the magistrate noting that Andile Ngcoza had not demonstrated remorse for the crime.
According to the report, Ngcoza, who was found guilty of the attack on Millicent Gaika in 2011, assaulted Gaika in a shack in Gugulethu township near Cape Town, telling her he would “show her she was a woman.”
Gaika told Cape Times that Ngcoza received the kind of sentence for which she was hoping.
The targeting of lesbians for what has been described as “corrective rape” has been making international headlines.
Speaking to Daily Xtra in June, Jacqueline Hansen, staff liaison on LGBT issues at Amnesty International Canada, said that despite South Africa’s explicit prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation under its 1996 constitution and the legalization of gay marriage in 2006, there is a disconnect between policy and practice.
“Lesbians, and LGBTI people who do not conform to culturally approved models of femininity and masculinity, live in fear of being assaulted, raped and murdered by men,” Amnesty International’s report, entitled “Making Love a Crime: Criminalization of Same-Sex Conduct in Sub-Saharan Africa,” states. “Between June and November 2012, at least seven people, five of them lesbians, were murdered in what appears to be targeted violence related to their sexual orientation or gender identity. The other two were gender non-conforming gay men.”
Why you can trust Xtra
