One woman describes being anally raped by a gang brandishing a broom handle.įamilial collusion in corrective rape is common, according to Carter. Indeed, when we meet in London, Carter produces transcripts of interviews with the survivors she photographed, which more often than not refer to knives, stones and sticks being used. 'Corrective rape is getting more violent.' 'Even in the two years I was there the stories I was hearing were getting worse,' she says. Carter's investigation – the most comprehensive of its kind – brought her right across the country, zigzagging from Durban and Johannesburg to Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, from some of the smartened-up townships replete with tourist-pleasing government housing, to shack-stuffed rural sprawls. In total, Carter photographed 45 survivors, hearing their stories and piecing together the mosaic forces fuelling the crime by interviewing priests and NGO workers, gay rights activists and family members. Horrified at the magnitude of the problem, she spent two years there, finding those affected and gaining their trust. Clare Carter left her home in New York City in 2011 to photograph South Africa's corrective rape victims.
