The AP reports:
"Gay Zimbabweans face widespread harassment and some have even been raped by those intending to convert their sexuality, the U.S. State Department said in a discussion of its annual human rights report in Zimbabwe.
Gay men were forced into heterosexual acts and lesbian women were raped, sometimes by male relatives, to teach them to change their ways, said Amanda Porter, political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Harare and compiler of the report.
'Some families reportedly subjected men and women to corrective rape and forced marriages to encourage heterosexual conduct,' she said Tuesday."
Last week Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe responded to calls to make gay rights a part of the country's revised constitution by saying, "Three days ago, I heard that some people want us to discuss the issue of gays in the new constitution. How do we even begin to talk about it? Those who engage in homosexual behaviour are just crazy. It’s just madness. Insanity. We can’t do it or the dead will turn in their graves. If you are doing that (engaging in homosexuality), you are destroying nationhood."
