The gang rape of a teenage girl has triggered a wave of protests across Brazil after photos and a video of the shocking crime were posted on social media.
After going to visit her boyfriend in Rio de Janeiro last weekend, the 16-year-old girl remembered being alone with him before blacking out.
Her next memory was of waking up naked in an unfamiliar house surrounded by more than 30 men, many of whom were armed.
It’s believed she was raped repeatedly by many or all of the men, who then bragged about it on Twitter.
A video, which has since been removed from the site, apparently showed her waking up from drug-induced unconsciousness with a man, laughing, saying “Pounded the girl, get it?”
Before it was taken down it accrued hundreds of likes and misogynistic comments but the majority of those who saw it reacted with revulsion.
The girl’s grandmother told a local newspaper she cried after watching it.
“I regretted watching it. When we heard the story we didn’t believe what was happening. It’s a great affliction. It’s a depressing situation,” she said, according to Sky News.
Hundreds of demonstrators met in downtown Rio on Friday night armed with signs saying “Machismo Kills.” and “No means no”.
In Sao Paolo they painted a mural with messages like “My body is not yours.”
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Top Comments
We're at war, ladies. Don't kid yourselves.
On this topic, has anyone else noticed how on other particular online news sites, that rape and sex abuse crimes are used in a headline-grabbing way, reminiscent of the sex-sells theory? Every time I see them do it, and how they word the headline to entice readers to hit on the story, almost in a salacious way, it makes me very uncomfortable as a woman. Rape is not sex, must we continuously point this out?
Yes I agree, when I read about Lynette Daley being murdered by a "violent sex act" I was very upset. There was nothing sexual about it. Two men preyed on her vulnerability and status as a disenfranchised, homeless woman, they encouraged and facilitated her extreme intoxication, took her to an isolated spot where she could not seek help and protection from others, and viciously assaulted her in a brutal, sustained, prolonged assault on her internal organs, in which she died from genital tract trauma. Other words should be used - I'm not sure which ones, but ones that reflect the violence and control of someone's physical autonomy by defiling and invading their body which is central to the assault, and remove the implication of "sex".