Via Rod. 2.0.
South Africa has announced it will assemble a task force to combat the recent increase in anti-LGBT attacks in the country, particularly in the impoverished townships. The most recent attack involved the horrible gang "corrective rape" and murder of a lesbian near Johannesburg last month.
According to ABC News: "More than 170,000 people from all around the world signed a petition calling for the South African government to act after Noxolo Nogwaza, a 24-year-old lesbian, was gang raped, stoned and stabbed to death using shards of broken glass nearly two weeks ago. The petition was sponsored by Change.org, a global human rights campaigning website.
The new task force will tackle issues such as whether crimes against the homosexual and transgender community should be considered hate crimes, whether a rape motivated by sexual orientation should receive a harsher sentence and increased sensitivity training for police, social workers and judiciary officials. The team is scheduled to begin work in July.
Although same-sex marriage is legal in South Africa, the country has highest rates of rape and HIV positive persons in the world. Hopefully this new task force can decrease the violence.
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