Zoliswa Nkonyana, a black lesbian, residing in Khayelitsha Township on the outskirts of Cape Town, was open about her sexuality and her family accepted her. Although she was open about her sexuality, a constitutional right in South Africa, it was seen as something very unusual in the townships.
Nkonyana's confidence and freedom about her sexuality cost her her life after she was stabbed and beaten to death six years ago. Her only crime was that she did not hide that she was lesbian.
Nkonyana's case is, however, not isolated. Other black lesbians in South Africa's sprawling townships have also faced similar deaths, while others have been abused, in what the perpetrators claim are corrective rapes.
This week, four men were found guilty of the murder of Nkonyana and were sentenced to 18 years each for stabbing and stoning the 19-year-old to death in 2006.
The magistrate said the court had to take into account the seriousness of the crime, personal circumstances of the accused, community interests and the victims' families.
A large crowd outside the Khayelitsha Regional Court cheered, sang, raised their fists and danced when news filtered that the men had been sentenced.
The magistrate told a packed courtroom that Nkonyana had posed no threat to the four accused, who were teenagers at the time of the attack.
"Here we are dealing with a young woman who was killed without mercy and not far from her home. I'm talking about a small-framed girl," the magistrate said.
Nkonyana's case was postponed more than 40 times with gender activists accusing police of shoddy investigations and prosecution.
Protection under the law?
Despite homosexuals being protected by the constitution, the practice is regarded as being unAfrican and frowned upon in the poorer suburbs.
Gender activists have welcomed the sentencing of the four men. Co-ordinator of FreeGender, Funeka Soldaat, says the issue of corrective rape and the murder of gay people should be addressed urgently.
Soldaat said, "The judge was saying that the sentencing will send out message that people won't continue doing the same thing. It is not necessarily just in Cape Town. It's not necessary in South Africa as a whole, it's in Africa where the gay and people are harassed to death".
The National Prosecuting Authority in the Western Cape said the sentencing of the murderers sends out a strong message that hate crimes will not be tolerated.
Family members told the media they were relieved that the men were sentenced and that there was finally justice for their beloved daughter.
Discrimination
Last year, addressing a UN summit in Geneva, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said, "for too long Lesbian Gender and Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) rights have been placed outside the ambit of human rights. They are relegated instead to the terrain of morality or culture. The local variation of this argument is that homosexuality is unAfrican or unChristian.
A Human Rights Watch report, "Violence and Discrimination against Black Lesbians and Transgender Men in South Africa" released in December found "that lesbians and transgender men face extensive discrimination and violence in their daily lives, both from private individuals and government officials".
The abusers of people known or assumed to be lesbian, bisexual, or transgender act with near-total impunity, the organisation found.
"The threat of violence that dominates the lives of lesbians, bisexual women, and transgender men, particularly in poorer and non-urban areas, beggars belief," said Dipika Nath, researcher in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights programme at Human Rights Watch.
The Human Rights Watch report further highlighted widespread ignorance about lesbians and transgender men and deep-rooted prejudice against gender and sexual non-conformity in South Africa.
Almost all of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they lived in fear of sexual assault.
