In the South African city of Port Elizabeth, there was, not long ago, a twelve year old girl called Pearl Mali with a big smile and gentle, sparkling eyes. If you had seen her playing, it would have been obvious that she was a type you can spot in any children’s playground anywhere in the world – a tomboy. Pearl would look at girls and feel a strange stirring, and she would ask herself: “What is this feeling?”

One day, Pearl’s mother came to her and laid out two cups. “This cup is a boy,” she said, “and this cup is a girl. How do you feel about these cups?” Pearl said she hated boys, they were ugly. But with girls, she said, looking at the other cup, she felt excited.

Like Pearl, we realized we were gay in our early teens. Slowly, over time, we were able to explore those feelings, and develop loving relationships. Pearl’s mother believed that she had to prevent that happening any way she could, so she decided to follow a simple process that is widely supported in the South African townships. She decided to get a man to rape her daughter until she became straight.

There was a much older man at her church, and he was glad to accept the invitation. He came home one day, pinned the girl down, and forcibly penetrated her. Pearl’s mother sat in the next room listening, and only interrupted to order her daughter not to scream.

This process is known as “corrective rape.” It is based on the belief – promoted by many priests, and widely believed across Africa – that if you rape a lesbian, you will “remind” her of the proper role of a woman, and she will become heterosexual.

But the day after her rape, Pearl woke up, and she was still a lesbian. Her mother decided she had clearly not been raped enough. She invited the rapist to come and live with them, and to rape the girl every day. He stayed for four years. Pearl went to the police. They laughed at her. “I needed help,” Pearl says, “but they kept laughing.”

When Pearl found out at the age of sixteen that she was pregnant with her rapist’s child, she decided she had to run away. As soon as the child was born, Pearl’s mother came and snatched the baby away. “You’ll make the baby gay if it stays with you,” she said. “You will never be able to hold this baby or touch it or kiss it until you decide to be heterosexual.” She took her mother to court to get custody of her child, and at the first hearing, the rapist turned up. The judge ordered them all to return the following day, but only Pearl came back. Without all the people involved, there could be no ruling in the case. Pearl has not seen her baby since. She thinks of him every day.

Amazingly, Pearl has managed – as you will see in the remarkable photographs of her in this book – to rebuild her life. She now has a girlfriend, and is working for the NGO Free Gender, a heroic group of women from the townships. They help women who have been attacked in this way to find the courage to speak out, and they pressure the police to take the crimes seriously.


Sir Elton John - Founder
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Pearl was raped in her own bedroom by an elderly man her mother had brought home from Church one evening.

"He told me to listen to him that I was so beautiful and sexy and he was going to sleep in here with me." She tried to go sleep elsewhere and he started to hit her. Pearl's mother could hear the screams and said "Pearl you are making noise. Shut up."

The following week Pearl's mother invited the man over again and asked Pearl to make him food for him. Once again he raped her. This began to happen regularly over some years and eventually, Pearl's mother asked him to move in and be Pearl's husband.

"He raped me almost everyday from when I was 12 to 16 years old. My mother didn't want me to be gay so she asked him to be my husband and hoped it would change me."

Pearl fled her home, but her mother found her and promised her if she came back nothing would happen to her and

she would be safe. "I believed her because she is my Mum. I came home and nothing changed. My Mum would lock me up in my room ifl resisted the man."

Pearl moved out and managed to get a restraining order against this man. In March 2009 she realized she was pregnant. She had a failed abortion. "When I had the baby I had to go back to my mum's house because the police said I was too young to take care of the baby."

Pearl's mother kicked her out of the house and took her baby away from her because she was still not adhering to her mother's rules. "I can not couch the child, I can not bathe him or feed him because I am going to make him gay too. I can not touch him or kiss him or anything.

"I couldn't fight anymore I was too tired. I said just take the baby and I went to live with my friend."

"My son still lives with my mother and I can not see him because I am still gay."

Nqobilc Khumalo was attacked and murdered in Kwamashu township in Durban. Her ex-boyfriend later confessed to the crime, stating that he had killed her because he could not accept that she had left him for another woman.

According to reports, in addition to being severely beaten, Nqobile was also raped prior to her death. The suspect was taken into police custody.

Noxolo was stabbed in the back as she walked home alone one evening in June 2011. She had been trying to ignore the homophobic taunts ofa group of men walking close behind her.

"They attacked me because I am a lesbian. They were saying fucking tomboy, fucking lesbian, accusing me of


taking their girls. They said they were trying to teach me a lesson."

Noxolo reported the incident to the police but her attackers remain at large.

She has since moved to another area of Cape Town for fear of seeing her attackers again.

Lindeka was followed by a man as she walked home alone on 9th June 2010. He caught up with her and slammed her head to a wall with a heavy crate.

Two weeks later, she was walking home from a bar when a brick struck the back of her head. As the same man from the previous attack beat Lindeka, she recalls him repeating, "You are a girl not a boy, you are not meant to be with other girls.


I am going to beat you until you stop what you are doing with other girls."

Lindeka's family chose to confront the perpetrator's family directly, rather than involving the police. He has since given her no further trouble, but he has attacked other lesbians in the community.

Ntsiki Tyatyeka’s mother last saw her daughter alive on 3rd September 2010.

Almost one year later, a rumor led her to a man she had suspected to be responsible for her daughter's disappearance.

When she confronted him, he freely admitted to killing her daughter. He even admitted that her body was still in the bin,just some 100 yards from his house. "All that I saw in the bin was a round figure like a head and a few bones.


I thought at least I would see her skeleton but no just a skull and a few bones.

"I always told Ntsiki that I didn't want her being friends with him. She wasn't safe with him. When she hung around with those boys she wore a bathing suit, underpants and then boxers. She said this way they would have had a struggle to try and rape her."

Nono’s cousin was concerned she was spending too much time with a particular girl and decided to have her followed. He discovered that she have been involved romantically with this girl for quite some time.

The next time Nono visited her cousin he raped her. This continued for the next several times she saw him. After the last incident Nono went to the hospital and discovered she was pregnant.

“I told my aunt what had happened and my family dismissed it. They never approved of me being a lesbian, they always wanted me to be a girl.”

Nono had a daughter in 2000 and struggled to create and maintain a relationship with the child, “I hated my daughter so much. I wanted to leave her somewhere.”

After years of personal struggle Nono developed a better relationship with her daughter. Her daughter has no understanding of the circumstances that lead to her birth. Nono’s cousin was killed some years later and her daughter does not know her father is her mother’s cousin.

At 13 years old, Simphiwe was raped by her uncle, whom she was living with at the time. "I was sleeping in pants and a vest when my uncle came to my room. He was next to me in my bed and he was carrying a pillow case and he told me to keep quiet. He took my virginity, he slept with my roughly I didn't know at that time it was rape, I was only 13. He did it two times."

Simphiwe told her mother what had happened because she was bleeding heavily. Her mother discussed it with the rest of the family and they decided it was a family matter and not to take it to the police.

In 2004 her uncle tried to arrange a marriage for Simphiwe to his friend. He took her to the home of his friend and left her there. She was raped and beaten. Her uncle's friend took her home the next day saying it was impossible, and that he could not marry her.

Two months later Simphiwe went to the hospital and found out she was pregnant and HIV positive. She decided to keep the child and named him Luvuyo Ndlovu which translates as Happiness.

In 2008 she was raped by a priest whom she had met at her friend's house. He had told her friend, "I will prove this girl is not a man.".

The priest arrived at Simphiwe's house one night, forced his way in and raped her.

She went to the clinic a month later and discovered she was pregnant again, she had the baby and named her Sibusiso Ndlovu, which translates as Blessing.

Simphiwe opened a case against the priest but said she had little chance because of what he represented in the community, "There was a lot of confusion, they lost documents and evidence. He was a priest. They obviously took his side."

In February 2010 Lungile and a friend were walking home from when they were abducted at gunpoint and pulled into a nearby field. "He started saying he was going to show us that we are women and we are not men. He undressed us first and then tied our hands and feet. I remember thinking, please not again, because my dad had raped me when I was seven, and I could see this man was going to rape us."

The police took a statement, but said they lacked the facilities to collect the DNA at that time. They were instructed to go home but not to bathe. "It was like torture, because I could smell this guy on my body and on my clothes," Lungile described.

Unwashed, the women returned the following day for the police to collect the DNA.

At the time of our interview Lungile had not heard back from the Police, 18 months after her attack.

Lungile stands at the scene of the crime.

In December 2009 Zukiswa went to a party with some friends. She was talking to one of the men there and explained that she was a lesbian. He did not seem bothered by it and told her he had lots of lesbian friends.

Zukiswa went to buy cigarettes locally and the man accompanied her. He led her into a shack where there was a man sleeping on a single bed. There were no chairs so Zukiswa sat on the edge of the bed. “He was asking me why I do these things, it was wrong, I am a woman not a man, I told him I was not a man that I was a lesbian. He said he was going to show me I was a woman so he took off his pants and put a blanket over the man sleeping on the bed. He raped me in front of his friend who just lay there under the blanket.” This was the second time Zukiswa had been raped because of her sexuality.

The man followed Zukiswa home and said to her, “Why are you crying? I was just doing what I had to do.” He followed her to her house. “My uncle asked him why I was crying and he said he didn’t know he just found me in the road crying.”

The police arrested the man who had raped her, but three days later she found him waiting outside her home. Zukiswa returned to the police station and was turned away. The station claimed they did not manage rape cases. Zukiswa went to a second station where she recalls being mocked and taunted by officers, “Aren’t you a man? How can you be raped then?” She left the station and did not pursue her case.