The South African football star murdered for being a lesbian

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2021

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2008, the brutal murder of Eudy Simelane shocked South Africa and highlighted the widespread violence faced by South African women and members of the LGTBI community. But has anything changed? We hear from a friend of Eudy and speak to Sibongile Ndashe, a South African lawyer and human rights activist. Plus, we look back at the massive oil fires in Kuwait in 1991, battling racial discrimination in British schools in the 1960s, Cold War intelligence gathering in East Germany and the invention of Chanel No.5, 100 years ago.

Photo: Eudy Simelane’s parents sat at the bridge named in their daughter’s honour. Credit: BBC

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the History Hour podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson,
0:05.1	the past brought to life by people who were there. This week we'll be remembering the oil fires in
0:10.4	Kuwait 30 years ago. There were just a couple of hundred fires right out there and I literally had tears in my eyes.
0:16.8	I couldn't believe it, you know, that somebody had done something like that.
0:19.8	Plus battling racism in 1960s British schools.
0:23.7	Caribbean children were considered to be deficient and there were also theories of inferior
0:30.3	intelligence based upon the work of eugenicists.
0:35.0	We've also got the smell of history how Chanel number five was invented a hundred years ago
0:40.0	and we'll be gathering intelligence in 1980s East Germany.
0:43.5	The East Germans and occasionally Russians would try to intimidate us.
0:48.0	There were car ramings, we had detentions.
0:50.7	That's all coming up later in the podcast, but we're going to start with a deeply disturbing piece of South African history.
0:57.0	This is a story which highlights the violence faced by women and especially the gay community in the country. In 2008,
1:04.8	Yudy Similani, a star South African female footballer, was raped and murdered
1:10.4	apparently because she was a lesbian. Viv Jones has been looking at this story.
1:14.7	Viv.
1:15.7	Hi Max, this was a story that really shocked South Africa.
1:18.9	Yudy was a striker, she played for the national team, she was living openly as a lesbian, and she was also well known as a gay rights activist.
1:27.0	When she died in horrific circumstances, she was gang raped and stabbed to death.
1:32.0	Her story became the focus of a huge campaign to raise awareness about hate crimes against lesbians, many of which were going unreported or weren't being properly investigated or punished. I've been speaking to Steve Let's
1:43.9	CK. She's a prominent LGBTI activist in South Africa and she was also Yudi's friend.
1:49.9	They first met when they were teenage football fanatics.
	...

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