Uruguay: they investigate the gang rape of a woman in Montevideo

A 30-year-old Uruguayan woman reported being gang-raped early Sunday morning in Montevideo, in the Cordón neighborhood. According to the victim, she went to a bowling alley in the neighborhood and there she met a man with whom she later went to an apartment two blocks from where they were. They had sex in a room until two other men entered and raped her.

At 6 in the morning, the Ministry of the Interior received a call to 08004141, the guidance telephone service for women in situations of domestic violence, denouncing abuse against women, reported La Diaria.

Cell phones were dispatched to the scene and the victim was found in shock. She was transferred to a health center and the doctors determined that the woman had been raped. The Police went to the apartment where the events took place and arrested a minor and two men who rent the place. At that time, they began to work on the Zona I Investigations case and the Scientific Police.

The Prosecutor's Office reported that the woman's story is consistent and that it coincides with what happened. The detainees refused a DNA test , so to carry it out anyway, a judicial authorization was used. This is a process of more than 48 hours, which is what the Prosecutor's Office actually has as a deadline to charge a person after they were arrested.

The men were summoned and will be formalized in the coming days with the scientific tests . The prosecutor in charge of the investigation declared that once the result of the DNA test is obtained, the corresponding formalization will be carried out.

Supporting the woman is the Victims and Witnesses Unit of the Prosecutor's Office and from there they affirmed that "it is not a question of impunity but of carrying out the procedures in an adequate manner so that the defense does not resort to a request for annulment. " .

In charge of the case, regarding the two men, is the prosecutor Sylvia Lovesio, of the Montevideo Criminal Prosecutor's Office for Sexual Offenses, Domestic Violence and Gender-Based Violence of the 4th shift. Ricardo Chiecchi is in charge of the investigation into the involvement of the minor in the Adolescent Prosecutor's Office.

At this time, the two men summoned are at liberty with limiting measures that imply restriction of approach to the victim and the prohibition to leave the country. The adolescent was admitted, at first, to the Institute for Children and Adolescents of Uruguay because he had no one to take care of him or where to stay. However, on Monday afternoon an adult assumed responsibility for the minor and the same limiting measures apply to him.

The prosecutor explained that "to be summoned is to establish an address and remain available to the Prosecutor's Office to be investigated," reported the newspaper El País. Since the complaint was made public, public opinion has manifested itself on social networks and in the press against what happened to the victim. "This is just beginning," said Sylvia Lovesio.

She added that the protocol was activated to receive the DNA tests and thus be able to charge "the three people denounced, if it was three, one or two."

“This requires that the victim be seen by a gynecologist, a psychologist, a psychiatrist and a forensic doctor. In addition, all the reports that were urgently requested, but that take time, because obviously it is a whole scientific procedure, which is about the comparison of DNA samples, ”she said in Doble Click (Del Sol FM).

The Complaint Process

The current reporting process that sex crime victims go through needs to be “changed,” Lovesio said. It is necessary to be able to give a “quick response” , although she believed that sexual crimes in Uruguay “are not a priority in terms of public policies”.

“It is good that indignation is generated and that this issue is put on the public table in the sense that people know how our system works. We act with the utmost diligence, but the immediate response that the victim should have, we do not have because we lack the fundamental tools to have a rapid response, ”she said.

The prosecutor was asked if women are safe in Uruguay and her response was: “no, they are not safe” . She emphasized that the sentences received by people who commit these crimes "do not contemplate the damage that the victim suffers, who is left with irreversible damage for life."

In this particular case, she feels "the same thing that happens to the rest of public opinion." That is because “every day we are working with victims, I would like the system to change, and that is what I demand every day, to be able to have the evidence much more immediately, to be able to act faster and give the victim a response. , which is what the victim deserves .”

KEEP READING:

How are the policies to prevent sexual abuse on the Uruguayan coast during the summerA Uruguayan police officer abused his eight-year-old niece and was protected by his boss for more than a yearThe Uruguayan Church received 44 complaints of sexual abuse in 70 years: none came to Justice