Gay teen raped by mother in attempt to 'cure' him

A gay teenager was forced to have sex with his own mother by his family in an attempt to ‘cure’ him of his homosexuality, an Indian LGBT organisation has said.

The LGBT Collective in Telangana, southern India, have highlighted the horrifying incident in an attempt to shed light on what they say is an ongoing problem of ‘corrective rapes’ being carried out on gay people form their own families.

The group says that parents will often handpick a family member – usually a cousin – to carry out the rape, but also reported a particularly shocking case of family members in Bangalore forcing a gay teenage male to have sex with his mother to ‘cure’ him.

Further reports say that sometimes the victims’ own brothers are responsible for carrying out the sexual violence.

Vyjayanti Mogli, a spokesman for the LGBT Collective, told Times of India that the traumatising nature of the crimes means many will go unreported.

“It’s usually a cousin who’s roped in for this ‘project'”, he explained.

“In some communities in South India, marriages amongst cousins are common. Many times, a girl’s parents may decide that she would be married off to a cousin (i.e. her father’s sister’s son or mother’s brother’s son) soon after her birth.

Now, if this girl happens to be queer and if it is found out that she is in a relationship with another girl, elders in the family believe having sex with the ‘would-be’, even if it’s forcibly, will cure her,” Vyjayanti explains.

Same-sex sexual relations are illegal in India, after the Supreme Court reimposed a colonial-era ban on gay sex in late 2013. The ‘crime’ carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, though is rarely enforced.

Indian filmmaker Deepthi Tadanki has added that he will explore the issue of corrective rape in his upcoming film, Satyavati, which will be based on some of the “shocking real life instances” that have taken place in Bangalore.

“When I was researching on this subject for my film, I came across two gut wrenching stories of corrective rape — one, where a gay girl was raped by her cousin so that she could be “cured” of homosexuality; and another, where family members forced a gay boy to have sex with his mother, in a bid to turn him ‘straight’,” said Tadanki.

“I tried reaching out to these victims, but they refused to talk.”

Gay teen raped by mother in attempt to ‘cure’ him

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