Johannesburg - Gauteng Premier David Makhura has painted a grim picture of Ekurhuleni as the deadliest place in the province for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community.
Makhura said people were killed for being who they were, and the places where the killings took place were known.
He was addressing the LGBTI community at the Nasrec Expo Centre in Soweto on Friday.
“One of the places well known for killing LGBTI members is KwaThema, in Ekurhuleni,” he said.
Makhura warned that these killings would no longer be tolerated under his government’s watch and that the provincial government would use the law to protect its citizens.
He outlined his government's vision and dream to be the friendliest province to members of the LGBTI community.
“We want this province to be one for all (who live in it). We want you if you are here to be acknowledged and have space to be who you are,” he said.
Makhura was raising awareness about the rights of marginalised people, such as those of the LGBTI community.
His dialogue focused on social cohesion, economic opportunities, preventing corrective rape and killings.
Some LGBTI members from Ekurhuleni, who were among those meeting the premier, spoke about their personal experience of being homosexuals.
Lebo Mokeng, 21, from Etwatwa, near Daveyton, said they faced hate crimes such as the rape and killing of lesbians on a daily basis.
She said most of the crimes committed against the LGBTI community were not properly attended to in clinics and police stations.
“We simply want to be treated as normal human beings. If a lesbian is killed we want justice,” she said.
“Personally, I have faced hate speech from heterosexual guys saying, "Isitabane sibaqedela abafazi’ (You gay animal, you are diminishing our women).”
Another delegate who gave her name only as Kgomotso from KwaThema, said she had been forced by men to go out with them.
She said she was returning from a 3-day camp when she took a taxi with some of her lesbian friends and the driver asked her to date him.
“This guy called me names and poured acid on me,” she said, bursting into tears.
Thandeka Masuku from Etwatwa, near Daveyton, said she had been a victim of police brutality because of her sexual orientation.
She said a policeman once assaulted her after she was wrongfully reported missing by her parents when she had gone to a gay pride festival.
“He looked at me angrily and said, 'What? Are you a boy or girl,' before slapping me in front of my parents and they said nothing,” Masuku recalled.