by MELANIE NATHAN
The petition “South Africa Declare Corrective Rape a Hate-Crime” hit the all-time high of 135,000 signatures on 4 January, 2011 – what a way to begin the New Year! The petition is still up and still growing – it is currently standing on a 135, 235… and still growing by the minute! The publicity for the plight of corrective rape victims was partly birthed here on LezGetReal when Ndumie Funda reached out to us back in 2009. After publishing the story and horrific pictures of “corrective” rape survivor, Millicent Gaika, we continued to follow the story here on LGR and some twenty articles later, with approximately 40,000 page hits and over 6,000 shares on Face book, watched as awareness of the endemic crisis in South Africa made it to the pages of other media outlets as well as the conscience of activists in the UK and other countries.
When Ndumie first contacted me, she was caring for a fifteen lesbians, victims of so called corrective rape- in Gugulethu, near Cape Town South Africa. They were desperate, no food and no money and on the verge of eviction from their flooded two room shack. I reached out to my South African contacts a large group of white privileged lesbians in South Africa, but no one helped. I reached out to the SA authorities and they were non responsive, I sent letters to US Consul, no answer. Finally I sent a month of my own mortgage money from the USA and also a dear cousin in Cape Town, Judy Favish, paid a visit taking money and supplies to Ndumie and the lesbian survivors.
Still raising money was slow, and then we started to hear from people abroad – Jules Hussey in the UK, and others jumped in and secured a large contribution from LUSH a cosmetic UK Company – which enabled Ndumie to buy a safe house for vicitms. See http://www.lush.co.uk/articles/our-charity-support/groups-we-support/luleki-sizwe_1013-10154_10.html
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