Worse in SA

A 13-year-old lesbian has become the latest victim of "corrective rape" in South Africa, prompting activists to call for direct retaliatory action.

The girl, who is said to be open about her sexuality, was raped in Pretoria last Thursday, a government spokesman said.

Campaigners say so-called corrective rape, in which men rape lesbians to "cure" them of their sexual orientation, is on the increase in South Africa. Thirty-one lesbians have been killed because of their sexuality in the past decade, campaigners say, and more than 10 lesbians a week are raped or gang raped in Cape Town alone.

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Dean Peacock, co-founder and co-director of the Sonke Gender Justice Network, said its research had found some men described feeling threatened by gender transformation, including the assertion of women's and children's rights.

He said: "When you compare South Africa with other countries, what distinguishes it is gang rape: a performance of masculinity, young men proving themselves to each other and saying to a woman: 'We're not prepared for you to assert that kind of autonomy, especially sexual autonomy'."

Peacock said that some men in post-apartheid South Africa occupied a "dangerous nexus" of patriarchy, masculinity, poverty, radical disappointment with the government, profound feelings of insignificance, and a sense they can act with impunity. But they were still individual agents able to make choices, and nothing could excuse horrendous violence against women, he said.