MINISTER CALLS FOR END TO ANTI-LESBIAN VIOLENCE

Lulu Xingwana, the Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities, who once slammed a lesbian art exhibition, has called for an end to the ‘corrective rape’ of lesbians in South Africa.

Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, Xingwana said that the country faces “a serious crisis of violence against women and children… women, young and old, are falling victims to rape and murder”.

She added: “The right to sexual orientation as stipulated in our Constitution is also being violated through the so-called corrective rape of lesbian women.”

Xingwana, who described corrective rape as a “scourge,” was previously the Minister of Arts and Culture.

While holding this post, in March 2010 she famously walked out of an exhibition by acclaimed lesbian photographers.

She later denied that she walked out because of the “sexual orientation of the pictures or the artists” but because some of the images were explicit.

“I accept and respect the rights of people of different sexual orientation. The claims that I am homophobic are baseless and insulting to me,” she said at the time.