Corrective rape: where’s the real outrage?

If SA soccer player and corrective rape victim Eudy Simelane had been a male national sports figure, would it have taken three YEARS for a task force to be announced? Not to mention the death of Noxolo Nogwaza and Nokuthula Radebe and a 13-year-old's rape and countless, underreported corrective rapes, deaths and assaults.

This task force has not been appointed, nor has it been convened. It’s not making representations to Parliament, nor submitting draft legislation... just announced to start work mid-July. That is, start work on CONSIDERING whether corrective rape is to be considered a hate crime, and prepare to engage in that most insidious of all pointless propaganda pursuits, “sensitivity training”.

I’m horrified by the fact that we are hailing this as a major victory. And that it took the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) to prompt the ANC Women’s League to declare these attacks as “heartless and senseless” hate crimes.

It’s a week before local elections, and this is the best bone we are thrown?

And it’s not as if no-one has spoken up. After 922 516 signatures on a Avaaz petition, and 171 776 at Change.org and articles in hundreds of national and international media, this ANCWL statement and the task force announcement are ‘victories’.

Mid-January 2011, Change.org hailed the ‘success’ of the corrective rape campaign in that Minister of Justice Jeff Radebe told Vuyo Mbuli on SABC3 that he was “very deeply concerned” about  corrective rape and that his office was “interacting on this process” with activists.

So, Minister Radebe, your talks about talks took four months to result in an announcement of getting a task force together to talk about talks?

Women and children are dying in horrific ways as a result of premeditated hate crimes in South Africa... and this is the best, apparently, we can do to address the problem: a few timeous press releases?  This is not just “paying lip service” to the Constitution, it’s a fine line from ignoring it all together.

Do you think more should have been done to stop corrective rape by now?