sexual abuse of same sex not necessarily gay

By Nthateng Mhlambiso (BTM Senior Reporter)

SOUTH AFRICA – August 12, 2008: Assumptions of relating sexual abuse of same sex to homosexuality abound lately in South Africa where the public could not draw the difference.

This comes in the wake of Tiny Virginia Makopo’s case of 29 July – recently postponed to Sebokeng Magistrates Court for October hearing this year – where the former dormitory matron at Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy pleaded not guilty on fourteen charges including assault, indecent assault, crimen injuria and indecent acts against young girls whom she had to fend for at the academy.

Allegations that Makopo repeatedly asked a 14-year-old girl to become a lesbian have led to public members concluding that Makopo is in fact a lesbian.

“Why would she beg a girl to be a lesbian, and why would she choose to violate girls? That means she is a lesbian herself”, a source known to Behind The Mask questioned.

However, Melanie Judge, programmes manager of OUT LGBT Well-being, repudiates the notion. “Sexual violation is not linked to sexual orientation. Sexual violation is about an abuse of power by one person over the other.”

Judge argues that, in a sexual abuse case, the most important issue is the crime itself and not the perpetrators’ sexual orientation.

She also accused the media for sensationalizing such ‘dangerous stereotypes’ by highlighting quite often particularly if the perpetrator is gay.

“Often when sexual violators are gay or lesbian, there is a sensationalistic over- emphasis on this by the mainstream media. We never see a headline that reads, ‘heterosexual man rapes child’, however if the offender is gay we would most probably read a headline that underscores the man’s sexual orientation.”

Etienne Venter, who has been a prosecutor in the sexual offences court for more than seven years and currently trying Makopo, told The Star newspaper that cases involving female sex offenders were very rare. 

Meanwhile reports state that less than 1% of sexual offenders tried in the country are women.

Makopo is reportedly one of only three women sexual offenders currently on trial in South Africa following Cezanne Visser who is facing 15 child sex charges to which she pleaded not guilty at Pretoria High Court. The third offender is a Johannesburg mother who stands accused of molesting her own four year old son.

While female sex offenders’ cases seem to be very low, experts suspect that many of them go unreported, especially by young boys.

Explaining why abusive behaviour by female offenders goes unreported, scholarly articles on female sex offenders reveal that children are reluctant to report the person they depend on, and that inappropriate behaviour is often masked in bathing, dressing or comforting the child.

It is further contended that in the case where boys are targets of female offenders, they are less likely to report. Also, people find it difficult to understand how women could sexually abuse, and to add salt to injury, children and adolescents who disclose sexual abuse by female offenders are often told that they are fantasizing.

A female sex offender is described as someone with a low self-esteem, has a history of severe emotional and verbal abuse, and who might not have had a parent in the household while growing up.

Most of female same sex offenders suffered sexual victimisation, particularly incest, from a woman when they were young. They feel alienated and isolated and might have a history of drug abuse.

As such crimes augment in South Africa, it is evident that some women, especially those who are directly or indirectly victims of sexual abuse, hate crimes, xenophobia and so forth, have little to celebrate this women’s month.