16 Days of activism not working for gays and lesbians

Mbombela- The Lowveld Gays, Lesbians, Bisexual and Transsexual organization said the government have a long way to go, in order to claim that the 16 days of activism against women and child abuse is making progress in the country and doesn’t lose value.-

This comes after the organization raised a serious concern regarding the continued discrimination that are faced by lesbians when they try to open a case at police station.-

Speaking to Mpumalanga Mirror, the chairperson of the organization, Ms Joy Kunene said: “16 days of activism against women and child abuse, we have noticed that this campaign only caters for straight women and not lesbians,“ she explained.-

Kunene indicated that they are talking from experience, when they said they are experiencing discrimination at the police stations as she added that “one of our members, who is a lesbian, was raped in 2009 and she went to open a case at Kabokweni and she received double victimization as the police said to her: “Are you a girl or a boy” and the case took a very long time. Our member started to attend a court case in 2011 and the Kabokweni court kept on postponing the case until it was transferred to Nelspruit court and the court judgment was not fair.-

“The sentencing was supposed to be based on rape, but it was corrective rape. she had been raped because the guy said he wanted to rape her because she is a woman. Government needs to do more to ensure that the people who are bisexual also get good services at police stations. I believe that the delays are caused because of her bisexuality,” she said.-

Early this year, the organization handed over a memorandum of grievances to the station commander of Kabokweni, Ms Ntombivelile Xhelithole. Kunene said they are very disappointed that there hasn’t been any response to that the memorandum. This comes after about 50 activists of the organization from various places in the Ehlanzeni region, marched to the police station and complained that they were not taken seriously by police officers when they reported incidents of sexual abuse.-

They demanded to be treated equally and get undivided attention like ordinary citizens of this country. They went further and stated that most of their members were abused sexually in the society.-

The LGBT believed that handing over the memorandum would make police officers aware of the challenges that they faced every day in the community.-