‘She is deeply wounded inside’
Looks at the destruction wrought by anti-lesbian violence
‘MAMA, please take me home. I am tired of living like a fugitive when I have committed no crime. If they kill me, then let it be.”
This was the defeated plea made by a young lesbian who had had enough of living in protective custody after watching her best friend being bludgeoned and stabbed to death in a hate crime that shook South Africa.
The teenager jumped over a fence to save her own life as a group of men pummelled 19-year-old Zoliswa Nkonyana to death on February 4 2006 in Khayelitsha, Cape Town.
Shortly after being released from protective custody, the young woman was beaten to a pulp for being a lesbian, and her life spiralled out of control.
Her mother, who asked not to be named to protect her daughter from further harm, has spoken out for the first time about the impact of the attack — how her daughter self-destructed, refusing to further her education after matriculating in 2009, and how she got involved in drugs.
The young woman, aged 17 at the time, was walking home from a tavern with Zoliswa when they were attacked.
Her mother held back tears when she recounted the events in her daughter’s life after Zoliswa’s death.
“From that day on, her dreams were doomed never to be fulfilled.”
She said the daughter who had been full of fun, the enthusiastic soccer player who had wanted to join the Banyana Banyana squad, had disappeared — to be replaced by “an angry and traumatised stranger”.
“Talking about it still sets her back. She is deeply wounded inside,” the mother said.
The young lesbian was forced to relive her trauma when she took the stand and gave evidence against her attackers in December 2008. She testified that four women had taunted her and Zoliswa over their sexual orientation and goaded more than 10 men into assaulting them. Prosecutors told the court that the scuffle started because the two lesbian friends had dared to use the women’s toilet.
“Every day I pray and ask God to help her accept what happened to her and move on with her life,” the mother said. “Everyone has a right to live the life that they want to live. As their parents we accept them as they are. They should not be abused for the choices they make.”
Whereas Zoliswa Nkonyana has become a household name mentioned every time an attack on a lesbian gets reported in the media, her shattered family struggle to put the broken pieces of their lives together.
More than seven years after her death, their reactions fluctuate between defeat, great hurt, anger and denial.
“We are fine. We are doing OK,” Gcinumzi Mandindi, Zoliswa’s stepfather, told the Sunday Times at his home.
When a journalist called, Zoliswa’s mother, Noxolo Mandindi, said: “Awu MaCirha [dear God], will this never come to an end. It has been so long.”
Gcinumzi watched Zoliswa being murdered in 2006 without realising it. From the back door of the family’s home, he saw a group of youths bludgeon some- one to death. He later learnt it was his stepdaughter. Noxolo, a member of the St John’s Zionist Church, was in church at the time, praying.
In October 2011, four of the men accused of Zoliswa’s murder were found guilty and sent to prison for 18 years. Five others were released. The case was characterised by protests outside court as human rights activists, including gay rights groups, demanded justice for the murdered teenager. There were 40 postponements before judgment was delivered.
Noxolo’s voice caught when talking about her daughter, but she did not utter Zoliswa’s name once throughout the conversation. She mentioned, however, that a baby picture of her daughter was among her most treasured possessions.
“I thought this was over. When they sentenced them, I thought this was done with. To think of the same thing all the time, not being able to move on . . .” she said.
To avoid the pain, she barely attended court hearings when the youths who took her child’s life were on trial. “With the end of the trial I laid it all to rest. I do not want to be reminded over and over again of something that happened so long ago.”
Funeka Soldaat is a Khayelit-
As their parents we accept them as they are. They should not be abused for the choices they make
sha-based gay rights activist who has herself been attacked, raped and stabbed. “It is not right that people are getting killed or raped in the same way over and over again,” she said.
Soldaat, who wears a gold band on her wedding finger, is determined to fight the belief that homosexuality is “unAfrican”. She lives in the same community whose mindset she hopes to change.
Through her organisation, Free Gender, she has helped to create a mural in memory of the lesbians who have been murdered.
But as she and others lobby the government to help them eradicate the hate crimes, tolerance for women living openly as lesbians is slow in coming and more families are paying the price.