Raped for being a lesbian ...

And killed, as in the case of Eudy Simelane.

As well as being one of South Africa's best-known female footballers, Simelane was a voracious equality rights campaigner and one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian in Kwa Thema.

Her brutal murder took place last April, and since then a tide of violence against lesbian women in South Africa has continued to rise. Human rights campaigners say it is characterised by what they call "corrective rape" committed by men behind the guise of trying to "cure" lesbian women of their sexual orientation.

Now, a report by the international NGO ActionAid, backed by the South African Human Rights Commission, condemns the culture of impunity around these crimes, which it says are going unrecognised by the state and unpunished by the legal system.

The mindset and beliefs that support these forms of targeted violence are found anywhere where hatred against women exists in the mind of misogynist men. This happened a few months ago, near San Francisco, a North American city where it would seemingly be safe to be honest about one's sexual orientation.

The 28-year-old victim was attacked on December 13 in Richmond after she got out of her car, which bore a rainbow gay pride sticker. Police said the attackers made comments indicating they knew the woman, who lives openly with her female partner, was a lesbian.

The attack began when one of the men approached the woman, struck her with a blunt object and ordered her to strip. He then sexually assaulted her with the help of the others, according to detectives. When the group saw another person approaching, they forced the victim back into her car and took her to a burned-out apartment building.

She was raped again inside and outside the vehicle and left naked outside the building while her attackers took her wallet and drove off in her car, police said.

Heterosexuality is no protection against sexual assault however. If a group of men terrorize, sexually torture and assault a woman to teach her a lesson, those religious and cultural values that fuel their rage and hatred must be addressed and put on trial, just as its enforcers should be.

As it is with pedophile priests, the common element in these crimes is the institutional validation of the power to control and harm women and children.