BANGALORE (Web Desk) – A gay teenager was reportedly forced to have sex with his own mother to ‘cure’ his homosexuality, in one of the horrific cases of “corrective rape” uncovered by campaigners in India.
Deepthi Tadanki, who is making a film on the subject, was told of the attack while doing research in the city of Bangalore.
“Family members forced a gay boy to have sex with his mother, in a bid to turn him ‘straight’,” she told the Times of India.
Her film, Satyavati, follows the fictional story of a girl who is raped by her uncle after her parents become suspicious of her relationship with her lesbian housemates.
The term “corrective rape” was coined in South Africa to denote rape where victims are targeted because of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity to “turn” them heterosexual.
Among the victims was Mvuleni Fana, who was walking home from football practice when she was gang raped by four men who told her they would make her “a real woman” before beating her and leaving her for dead.
Several others have been murdered in the same attacks, including two women raped, tortured, tied up and shot in the head in South Africa in 2007.
There are no formal statistics available on corrective rape, which campaigners believe is reported even less frequently than other forms of sexual assault in India because of the frequent involvement of family members.
A group called LGBT Collective in the southern state of Telangana has recorded 15 corrective rapes there in last five years.
“We are sure there are many more cases, but they go unreported,” Vyjayanti Mogli told the TOI.
“We came across such cases not because they reported the rape, but because they sought help to flee their homes.”
He said cousins are often chosen by families to carry out the assault, which may be followed by forced marriage.
Homosexuality is taboo in many parts of India and legal rights for LGBT people regressed in 2013, when the Supreme Court reinstated a Victorian law dating back to the British Empire criminalising gay sex.
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code bans “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal”.
The offence is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, although no convictions have been recorded in recent years.
