Culture

Three LGBTQ+ People Have Been Killed in South Africa During Pride Month


 

The hate crime wave facing LGBTQ+ people in South Africa has been compounded by the brutal murders of three more victims. Their deaths continue a grim streak of anti-LGBTQ+ murders in South Africa, according to queer news outlet Mamba Online.

Anele Bhengu, a 22-year-old lesbian, was found dead on the side of the road in the township of KwaMakhutha in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) this past weekend. Bhengu was reportedly stabbed, raped, and disemboweled while she was traveling to visit a friend, according to a statement from the local legislature posted on Facebook.

Nontembeko Boyce, the speaker of the KZN’s legislature, said that Bhengu’s killing was “very painful news to receive, especially during Pride Month.” “Lesbians in an often homophobic and patriarchal society, they face a further danger — the idea that they can be changed and made into women through what is known as corrective rape,” Boyce said in a statement.

The BBC reported in 2011 that 31 lesbians had been subjected to sexual assault to “change” their sexual orientations in the past 10 years.

Lulama Mvandaba, another Black lesbian, was killed in her own home just days prior to Bhengu’s death. Mvandaba was assaulted by three men in the Khayelitsha township in Cape Town on June 5. Her body was only discovered last Friday when her neighbors broke her door down, according to South African news publication Independent Online.

While police initially claimed that Mvandaba died of natural causes, an autopsy revealed numerous assault wounds. These included burn marks that “possibly indicated that she could have been assaulted with a burning object,” per local new reports.

Mvandaba’s family believes that she was targeted because of her sexuality.

“We ask for privacy at this point and will issue a statement about her death once we have had time to grieve, as, unfortunately, she was murdered due to her sexuality and as a member of the LGBTQI+ community,” Mvandaba’s brother, Mvelisi Mvandaba, told Independent Online. “We are extremely shocked and traumatised as a family and can only imagine how all the kids she touched during her career will be feeling.”

According to Mvandaba’s Facebook, she was a volunteer at Phakama Youth and Community Health Project, a faith-based advocacy organization that sought to provide AIDS education and HIV testing to community groups.

Just one day after Mvandaba was murdered, a 28-year-old gay man, Masixole Level, was found dead in the city of Gqebera in the Eastern Cape, according to Mamba Online. While it’s unknown whether the killing was a botched robbery or a hate crime, his sister speculated that the crime was motivated by his sexual orientation due to the numerous stab wounds found on his body.

“It looked like someone hated him or really wanted him dead,” said his sister, who was referred to mononymously as Siphokazi in an interview with Mamba Online. “If it was just a robbery, they wouldn’t have stabbed him like that.”

Siphokazi also described her brother, who was a hairstylist, as “friendly” and “loving,” someone who was “always laughing. “[H]e cared so much for his friends,” she said.

Protestors march during the #JusticeForLulu peaceful protest to Parliament on April 16, 2021 in Cape Town, South Africa.

According to local LGBTQ+ advocates, the government is largely ignoring the crisis facing the community — despite the fact that activists have been demanding action for months. Over 200 people march in a Queer Lives Matter protest in April to call attention to the murders of victims like Anile “Lulu” Ntuthela and Nathaniel Mbele.

Marchers sent a list of demands to parliament following the rally, but Queer Lives Matter organizeer Kamva Gwana said little has changed in the months since.

“We are calling on parliament to hold an urgent debate centering on hate crimes and the realities of the LGBTQI+ community at large, and the [South African Police Service] and Department of Justice to sensitise itself in dealing with crimes inflicted against queer bodies,” he told Independent Online.

Gwana said LGBTQ+ community members don’t report hate crimes for fear of being subjected to further discrimination from the police.

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