Reporting Rape: Part Two in a Global Series
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA – An Argentine woman, who declined to be named, says she was 23 when a stranger raped her in the full light of day in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital.
It was close to 5 p.m. when she boarded a bus to return home from university. When she exited the bus and walked the four blocks to her apartment, she didn’t realize that a man was following her.
When she opened the glass door of the apartment building, he walked in behind her. They entered the same elevator, but before it reached her floor, he stopped it. He then put a knife to her forehead and covered her mouth with his other hand.
When he tried to kiss her, she says she wanted to scream, but she’s not sure the words ever left her mouth. It all happened so fast, she says. He then raped her inside the elevator.
When she arrived at her apartment, she was trembling and crying. Her mother notified the doorman after she told her what had happened. The staff locked all the doors of the building, but the man had already escaped.
Five years have passed since the rape, and she still gets goose bumps when she talks about it. But she never reported it.
She says she feels that telling her story at a police station would be like getting naked in front of them. She’s also not sure that she would be able to identify the man who raped her.
A unique protocol for reporting rape in Buenos Aires aims to make victims feel more comfortable seeking assistance and justice.
A pilot program in the capital features a mobile team of social workers and psychologists who provide support to rape victims in order to sensitize the reporting process for them. Creators of the government program say the biggest challenges have been making sure the brigade members have proper training and overcoming prejudice in the legal and judicial systems. Because the program has been successful in the capital, the government and program organizers are now working on reproducing it in the rest of the country.
The government initiated the program, called Victims Against Violence, in 2006. The program’s Mobile Brigade is specifically trained to respond to cases of rape.
Carina Rago, the brigade’s supervisor, says the team attends to four to five cases of sexual violence in the city each day. The brigade, which comprises more than 30 psychologists and social workers, works 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Rago says that 90 percent of the victims who report sexual violence are women of various ages. The male victims that make up the other 10 percent are mostly young.
The federal government summoned Dr. Eva Giberti, a psychologist with more than 30 years of experience in hospitals, to assemble the program. She is the author of numerous works about gender violence and usually serves as a panelist in conferences about this issue around the country.
Rago, a social worker, helped incorporate the program from its inception. In addition to working in the field and assisting many victims in person, as supervisor she must also read and brief herself on all the cases that her colleagues handle.
Giberti says that after a victim reports a rape, the police are obligated to immediately call the Mobile Brigade, which has special training to work with victims of sexual violence.
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