Horrifying: Parents in India are using 'corrective rape' to cure homosexual children

If the social stigma faced by homosexuals is not enough, statistics now suggest that parents are using 'corrective rape' to cure their gay children.

The Times of India reports, "According to statistics with the Crisis intervention team of LGBT Collective in Telangana, there have been 15 instances of 'corrective rapes' that have been reported in the group in the last five years."

Representational image. Reuters

As horrendous as this practice is, what makes it worse is the unwillingness of the victims to lodge a complaint with the police. And why this hesitation? Because most of the perpetrators of this act are people from the family — brothers, cousins and even mothers.

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The term 'corrective rape' was first coined in South Africa where this practice is prevalent. An article in New York Times says, "Corrective rape is a hate crime wielded to convert lesbians to heterosexuality – an attempt to 'cure' them of being gay. The term was coined in South Africa in the early 2000s when charity workers first noticed an influx of such attacks."

Now we see the rise of this crime in our backyards. While men in the family rape their lesbian relatives to 'cure' them, gay men too are victims of this crime.

Deepthi Tadanki, who is in the process of making a film on this taboo topic reveals some horror stories she came across while researching for her film. Tadanki is quoted by The Times of India as saying, "When I was researching on this subject for my film, I came across two gut wrenching stories of corrective rape — one, where a gay girl was raped by her cousin so that she could be "cured" of homosexuality; and another, where family members forced a gay boy to have sex with his mother, in a bid to turn him 'straight'. I tried reaching out to these victims, but they refused to talk."

The trauma from such incidents often make victims want to cut off ties with their families or even run away from home. A member of the LGBT crisis management team Vyjayanti Mogli tells The Times of India, "Victims find it traumatising to speak of their brothers/ cousins turning rapists and prefer to delete the incident from their memories and cut off ties with their families. Which is why such cases almost never get reported."