Eudy Simelane is the South African woman whose love of football caused her to lose her life! She was the victim of the gay-bashing trend that is steadily increasing in South Africa!The poor woman died violently.Because of her sexual preference & career choice,Eudy Simelan was gang raped & stabbed 25 times!!!
Here's more on this horrific story from the Times Online:
"Eudy Simelane loved football. In other countries the 29-year-old who rose through the ranks to become captain of the women’s national football team would have been fêted as a star. In South Africa it cost her her life.
The top striker, who was gay, was set upon by a gang of thugs, gang-raped and stabbed 25 times. Her sexuality and supposedly butch looks were a death sentence in a country in which the sport is still considered a man’s game by many.
Today, the trial of three men accused of her murder in April 2008 goes ahead after being delayed last month when a fourth man who had agreed to be a witness for the prosecution withdrew his statements at the last moment. For the gay community it is a landmark moment.
In South Africa’s sprawling black townships Ms Simelane was the most famous victim of an increasing trend in anti-gay violence. There, lesbians live in fear. At least twenty women have been killed in the past five years. They are often victims of a phenomenon known as “corrective rape” — the rape of a lesbian by a man either to punish her or cure and correct her sexual orientation.
“Most survivors of these attacks do not report them. We believe there are hundreds of people who have been targeted,” Phumi Mtetna, 36, the director of the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project, told The Times.
“Men are unemployed and feel traditional male preserves — such as football or drinking in a bar — are under attack. That was Eudy’s crime. An aggravating factor was that she did not look like a typical female. People are just getting killed here because they are different, like HIV-positive people have been killed in the past. What is important is to get a verdict which includes murder,” she said."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.
