Our leaders need to speak out against this terrible scourge

The Times Editorial: On Friday Noxolo Nkosana walked home from work with friends in Nyanga, outside Cape Town. As she walked, she was stabbed in the back.This was no ordinary, random crime that we live with in South Africa. Neither was it a robbery that went horribly, violently wrong.

As the men sank their knives into her back, they shouted: "You f***ing lesbian, you f***ing tomboy."

Nkosana's "crime" amounted to nothing more than, according to her attackers, being of a "wrong" sexual orientation.

For this young woman is a lesbian. Simply put, she prefers intimate relationships with women rather than men.

She has committed no crime. In fact, our Constitution outlaws discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Furthermore, men are allowed to marry men and women can marry women. That is the law.

So, where does this utter contempt for gay women come from?

Moreover, how did we end up with the term "corrective rape" - the sexual assault of women so they could be to "turned" into heterosexual beings?

The incidences of corrective rape appear to be increasing or, at the very least, taking place at an alarming frequency, particularly to African women.

To the men in their communities, they are grotesque perversions of women, there to be humiliated and punished.

Last month, the government announced the formation of a task team to combat corrective rape.

Senior officials from the justice, crime prevention and security cluster met various NGOs to devise a strategy to combat this scourge. The first meeting of the national task team takes place tomorrow in Cape Town.

But surely top politicians - from all major parties - need to join this campaign if it is going to make a difference.