Can You Eat Funnel Cake Past The Expiration Date

South Africa debate the protection of the rights of women assaulted by their sexual orientation - Homosexuality is an added risk in the ghettos

LALI CAMBRA - Cape Town - 19/03 / 2011

"It is our responsibility to ensure that corrective rape victims report cases," said a year ago for the Ministry of Justice South Africa. The next day began his umpteenth Gaik Millicent pilgrimage to court to face the man who raped to "cure him of being a lesbian." As she had returned to his home. The trial was postponed because neither witnesses nor the doctor who tended after the attack were present.

Gaik is not alone. The trial for the murder of Zoliswa Nkonyana, lesbian 19, also in Cape Town, has been postponed 32 times, most recently last week. Activist groups in South Africa call for the adoption of a specific law to punish those they define as "hate crimes", and meanwhile is the Government to monitor each case.

in May will be a year and a month after the attack on Millicent, 30 and local resident of Gugulethu, one of the oldest settlements in the city and apartheid.Millicent product returned to his home In the afternoon, accompanied by her friends, when another neighbor, Andile N., whom she knew, asked for a cigarette. Andile Millicent did not know that already had a rape conviction and hoped the man, who had always treated with respect and I knew she is a lesbian, physically assaulted her, put her in her hut and raped her for five hours. "You think you're a man, but I'll show you're a woman. I'm going to impregnate, you give me a son "is what the rapist snapped, according to the complaint. A group of neighbors decided to pull the door down and rescue Millicent. But the horror did not end there.

Despite opposition from activists, Andile N. obtained bail. The Millicent barred approach, although both lived in the same neighborhood. He kept harassing her and she had to change residence.

Then

started visits to court. The latest delay occurred because the witnesses were not called. "The police do their job," said Funeka Soldaat, a member of Gender Free, one of the more than ten NGOs launched a campaign to collect signatures against "hate crimes."

In December, the campaign reached the Internet through a petition (on site www.change.org) driven by the suicide last month, a lesbian who had been assaulted. In a few weeks collected 170,000 signatures from 163 countries, and if, before access to the Ministry of Justice seemed impossible, now were responsible for the government who contacted activists.

On Monday they met for the first time in Parliament in Cape Town and agreed on an action plan and a working committee to face the dangers of being gay, lesbian or transgender in the ghettos of South African cities. "Fear is passed, there is an atmosphere of threat that you get used ... to survive," says Soldaat. South Africa was the first country to ban discrimination in the Constitution of sexual orientation and the first African country to legalize gay marriage. Still, the statistics of male violence are among the highest in the world.