Born free, killed by hate - the price of being gay in South Africa

South Africa's constitution was the first on the planet to shield individuals from segregation due to their sexual introduction. The nation was likewise the first in Africa to sanction same-sex marriage. In any case, after a spate of murders, gay individuals say all the more should be done to stop loathe violations.

Betty Melamu sits on a cocoa cowhide couch in her front room in the township of Evaton, only south of Johannesburg. She's supporting a confined photo of her girl Motshidisi Pascalina, known as Pasca.

In a calm, faltering voice, she sings Pasca's main tune.

"At whatever point she would listen to radio or go to chapel she would sing that melody," she recollects.

When I inquire as to whether Pasca was a decent vocalist she says, "Yes," and chuckles - obviously Pasca was more vivacious than gifted, always exchanging between parts as she sang.

She cherished football as well, concentrated hard at school and needed to be a government official.

"She needed to benefit something," says Melamu with pride.

Be that as it may, the chuckling and upbeat recollections are passing, and misery is carved in her thin, drawn face. Pasca was a lesbian, something her family knew and acknowledged. She had quite recently turned 21 and finished her last secondary school exams when she went to a gathering in December.

"I don't realize what happened after the gathering," says Melamu. "In any case, she didn't return."

After two days Pasca's body was found in a field in a neighboring township. She had been beaten and disfigured. At the funeral home her family couldn't remember her face and could just distinguish her by a tattoo on her leg.
"Around then I was solid," Melamu recollects. "In any case, after that I have a feeling that I am insane lady."

Furthermore, as we talk, she rehashes one question, again and again.

"Why? Why did this happen to my tyke?"

Pasca was conceived in 1994, the year politically-sanctioned racial segregation finished and Nelson Mandela was chosen president - she was one of the first of South Africa's alleged conceived free era.

In his introduction discourse, Mandela guaranteed to "fabricate a general public in which every single South African will have the capacity to walk tall, with no dread in their souls... a rainbow country content with itself and the world."

Picture copyright Getty Images.