By Zara Nicholson
A lesbian was allegedly beaten and raped repeatedly for five hours by a man who told her he wanted to "turn her into a woman".
With both eyes swollen and bruised, stitches above her left eye and open wounds on her neck, Millicent Gaika, 30, of Gugulethu, haltingly told how a man she had known for years attacked and raped her repeatedly on Friday night. Her voice was husky from screaming.
Gaika alleged her attacker "acted like an animal who wanted to kill".
He has been arrested and will appear in the Philippi Magistrate's Court on Tuesday.
On Friday just after 10pm Gaika and her friends were walking home after spending the evening at a friend's house in NY1. As they approached their home, a man, one of many tenants on the site, apparently asked Gaika for a cigarette.
She stayed to smoke with him while her friends walked on. A few minutes later, the man refused to pass the cigarette to Gaika and walked into his room.
When she followed him he allegedly locked the door. "He started hitting me and I fought back. Then he started doing what he did to me. He pulled off my clothes and pushed me down on the bed. He did it more than once. He was holding me down, strangling me and pushing his hands hard on to my neck.
"I thought he was going to kill me; he was like an animal. And he kept saying: 'I know you are a lesbian. You are not a man, you think you are, but I am going to show you, you are a woman. I am going to make you pregnant. I am going to kill you.'"
Gaika said the man had never openly objected to her sexuality before. "He was very nice to me - I'd known him for years. I hate him now. I am just angry. I was swearing at him while he was doing this to me. I just wished I could die. I hate what he has done, he makes me sick."
About 4am, after five hours of Gaika being raped, a neighbour knocked on the man's door and demanded to know who was in the room with him.
A friend of Gaika's who asked not to be named said: "The neighbour heard something and he insisted that the man open the door. Then he broke the window and the two men started fighting. Other neighbours came and eventually broke down the door and saw what was happening. The rapist wanted to run away, but we kept him there until the police came. Millicent was on the bed. She was only wearing her sweater and it was full of blood."
The attack was not the first one. After she was raped by four men in 2002, Gaika told herself that it would never happen again and got her life back on track.
Gaika said the four men had been convicted and were sentenced to between 10 and 15 years. "But after a few years, they got out and that was too little time... I saw them walking around here in Gugulethu again. I was angry but I got through it and I wasn't scared. But this time it was worse, much worse. Now I am scared, I don't trust men. I don't know if I am ever going to be okay after this because I thought I was going to die."
Ndumi Funda, the founder and director of Lulekisiswe Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Women's Project in Nyanga, was at Gaika's house yesterday and said she was "deeply hurt and traumatised" by the news.
"This needs to be stopped. We know of so many that this happens to and nothing is done about it. How many more young lesbian women must die?"
The project was formed more than two years ago and has various awareness programmes. It also has a centre to help women like Gaika.
It was started after Funda's fiancee and other lesbians they knew died of Aids-related illnesses; they had contracted HIV in homophobic attacks.
Last month, Weekend Argus reported that the rape and murder of gays and lesbians had taken on "crisis proportions" and was not restricted to townships.
According to a report by international group ActionAid, there were reports of 10 new cases of lesbians being raped every week in Cape Town alone.
Gugulethu police spokesman Captain Elliot Sinyangana confirmed the incident and said a 40-year-old man had been arrested.
He will remain in custody until his court appearance.