IT’S unimaginable to think parents would get their own children raped to cure homosexuality. Sadly it's a reality in one part of the world.

The Indian Times reports that according to statistics from the team at LGBT Collective in central Telangana, there have been 15 instances of ‘corrective rapes’ over the last five years.

“We are sure there are many more cases, but they go unreported,” says Vyjayanti Mogli, a member of crisis intervention.

“We came across such cases not because they reported the rape, but because they sought help to flee their homes.”

It’s reported that in most cases of ‘corrective rape’ the crime is committed by a family member.

“Victims find it traumatising to speak of their brothers or cousins turning rapists and prefer to delete the incident from their memories and cut off ties with their families. Which is why such cases almost never get reported,” Vyjayanti told The Indian Times.

“It’s usually a cousin who’s roped in for this ‘project’. In some communities in South India, marriages among cousins are common,” she said.

“Many times, a girl’s parents may decide that she would be married off to a cousin 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.

In 2013 the Indian Supreme Court reinstated a colonial law which banned gay sex.