At the last edition of the Oscars, American filmmaker Sarah Polley took the stage at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles to accept the award for Best Adapted Screenplay. His surprise and delight were notorious. He thanked the Academy for not offending the pun in the film, Women Talking, which he directed. The title of the film for Latin America was presented as Ellas hablan, an adaptation of Canadian author Miriam Toews’ novel about a series of abuses committed against a dozen women in a Mennonite colony.
Although the film mentions that the story is based on true events, it doesn’t elaborate on where it happened. The horrors he is referring to happened 15 years ago in the neighborhood of Manitoba in Santa Cruz Department, Bolivia. 150 kilometers from the city. For years, more or less from 2005 to 2008, hundreds of women, including the elderly, adults and adolescents, were systematically drugged and raped in their sleep. The abuse was committed by a group of men from their own community, aged between 20 and 40, who used powerful sleeping pills to calm their victims, the men around the house and even the dogs at night. This is how they went about committing these acts of violence.
Initially, the attacks were attributed to “spirits or demons.” Some church members dared to claim that God or Satan would punish them for their sins. Others accused her of “wild female imagination”. Everything was exposed when the father of one of the rapists began to suspect his son’s behavior, since he didn’t wake up early and disappear from his house at night as he used to. Until he finally followed him and discovered the atrocities he was committing. He was brought before the colony’s council of elders, and the young man confessed everything. The houses he had broken into, the victims and their accomplices, according to the prosecutor responsible at the time.
Nine men were made available to the Bolivian authorities, handed over by the colony’s council of elders and religious authorities, who in this type of Anabaptist community tend to solve their problems and administer the colonies without the intervention of outside authorities. The men were sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Bolivian judiciary, but as Toews – an expert on Mennonite culture due to her ancestry – explained to him in an interview with EL PAÍS, there is no outside help in these autonomous colonies. This type of event occurs . So, of course, it came as no surprise or surprise to them that they kept going for so long.
“The number of cases of sexist violence in the homes of these neighborhoods is very high and the world is largely indifferent as to what exactly the elderly and religious leaders like. When the outside world begins to take an interest in these crimes, the colony packs its bags and goes to even more remote parts of the world where they can be left alone and act with impunity,” the author added.
And that couldn’t be truer. Just last year, it was revealed that a further six men, including adults and youth, were arrested for the rape of 40 Mennonite women in a replica of events of the previous decade. This time, the attacks occurred in the municipalities of Belice and Piedra Dos, about 100 kilometers east of Santa Cruz. According to the detainees told prosecutors, the women were doped with a mixture of anesthetics and animal sexual stimulants, which they administered with a spray.
This time, however, it was the women who reported it to the Bolivian authorities and intervened in the communities. The focus, anger and general attention of the Bolivian people has returned to these attacks at a time when the judicial system is being questioned and various voices are calling for its restructuring due to its ineffectiveness, compliance and corrupt actions. Last year, the existence of a network of judicial mafias became known, which releases women murderers and rapists convicted of murders and rapists from prison in exchange for money.
That’s how it came to light that one of those convicted of abusing more than 150 women in Manitoba was released without serving his sentence after paying $25,000 to a judge. The Bolivian government has re-arrested the convict and the judge who freed him is being prosecuted.
An investigation by Mujeres Creando published a list of at least 500 irregular cases, including 84 people convicted of rape and femicide who were on probation in Bolivia. This group sees a need to think about a feminist justice system that works in parallel with the ordinary justice system and the original indigenous justice system recognized in the political constitution of this country.
The film and the work, through its protagonists, question the world and the system in which this type of abuse is perpetrated, which was eventually regulated and created by men and for men. In that sense, what Polley said in her acceptance speech for the statuette is fundamental: “Miriam Toews has written an extraordinary novel about an active democracy in which women defend their futures free from violence, and they do so not only by talk to each other, but also listen. The film’s final line is recited by a young woman to a baby saying, “Her story will be different from ours.” It’s a promise and a commitment.”
The picture of the week: Beatriz against El Salvador
A group of women are demonstrating, waiting for the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to rule on El Salvador in the Beatriz case. MAYELA LOPEZ (Portal)
By Noor Mahtani
This Wednesday, all Latin American feminists had one place in mind: the headquarters of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. There, in Costa Rica, the two-day hearing on the Beatriz vs. El Salvador case took place, a trial before the Supreme Court to discuss for the first time the consequences of the absolute criminalization of abortion. The litigation is typified by a young woman with lupus who died seeing her health deteriorated “extremely” as a result of an unviable pregnancy that the state forced her to carry to term.
81 days after her request for a break and after the precautions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights urging the state to terminate the pregnancy, Beatriz underwent a cesarean section. The fetus died five hours later, and the young woman’s physical and mental health “was never the same,” her mother explained at the hearing. “For my daughter, the decision to move on was torture,” she said.
A ruling in Beatriz’s favor can change America’s least-guarantee legislation and set a precedent for the other four countries that consider abortion a crime: Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Abortion rights, as Tania Renaum, executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, put it, “is not a new conversation, it’s a pending conversation.” The conversation and the historic judgment are in the hands of the seven judges of the court. The decision could become known later this year.
Our recommendations of the week:
The death of the Salvadoran Manuela, the Dominican Esperancita or the Nicaraguan Amelia is the background of the case “Beatriz vs. El Salvador” that the Inter-American Court is analyzing this Wednesday and which could force this country, one of the most restrictive in the region, its abortion laws to change
When Irinea saw her daughter’s body, she knew she hadn’t committed suicide: “Have you killed her yet, son of a bitch?” she told the police officer.
Matías Farias is found guilty of sexual abuse, drug trafficking and murder five years after his acquittal in the same case
The player is forced to leave América Femenil after suffering from digital harassment for almost a year
The minor was forced to change schools while her school, teachers and the rest of the parents hide behind the Usos y Costumbres law to ban her from attending classes
The project, a pioneer of its kind, includes security guards, lactation sectors and stalls for entrepreneurs
A rape allegation shakes the UAM and triggers a strike that demonstrates the malfunctioning of mechanisms to combat gender-based violence at all universities
Henry Sanabria turns back to the Bible in a powerful interview about public exorcisms. President Petro says he will speak to him about his religious fundamentalism
In “Materia que arde” (Lumen), the writers Sara Uribe and Verónica Gerber analyze the life and work of the writer with a focus on her essays and thoughts on women’s rights
The mini-series on Filmin is a tongue-in-cheek look at the clash of tradition and youthful rebellion in London’s Islamic community. There are many ways to be a woman, young and Muslim
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