Roughly a year ago local officials in Brazil were under fire over the denunciations of an imprisoned teenage girl. The fifteen-year-old girl was arrested and kept unfairly in jail for over three weeks with men who were accused of raping her. Brazilians around the country were shocked at such abuse though similar incidents had occurred in other provinces.
Local leaders and politicians got on their high horse and promised to enact crucial reforms. Yet as the AP recently observed, those pledges have been nothing but empty words:
After the uproar of the case, the Para state governor, congressmen, and even the Brazilian president vowed to tackle the problems that caused the assault: callous, corrupt police and a jail system with few separate cells for women. The jailhouse was demolished.
Yet Para, a jungle state twice the size of France stretching inland from Brazil's northeastern Atlantic coast, still only has six separate cells for women at its 132 jails.
Judge Clarice Maria de Andrade, who approved the girl's imprisonment, was merely transferred to another jurisdiction without even a censure. It's also far from clear whether the current judicial inquiry, held behind closed doors because the victim was a minor, will yield any convictions.
The accuser is currently serving in a witness protection program, yet a broken system will do little to stem the fears of other young girls in Brazil. As long as officials place a metaphorical bandage on an ever-growing flesh wound, the calls for reform will be nothing but hot air and cheap theatrics.
Image- New York Times (“A girl who was abused by inmates at a jail in Brazil was embraced by her stepmother and mother [last November] after being freed.”)
Sources- The Latin Americanist, Dallas Morning News, GMANews.tv
1 comment:
You mean states, not provinces.
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