True warriors don’t give up. Paula Martinez, who was drugged with burundanga and gang-raped by at least five men in a house in Florencio Varela in December 2016, fought for five years so that the crime would not go unpunished. Along the way, she endured harassment and threats from the relatives of the four arrested for the rape, who live in the same neighborhood. Paula was terrified, anguished and also too tired by the abandonment of the State, which did not accompany her or provide her with economic or psychological assistance. At the end of last year, at the age of 23, she committed suicide. That warrior planted a mother, Sandra Zapata, who now continues the fight, “on her feet” and “empowered”, before the Oral Criminal Court 4 of Quilmes in the trial that will begin tomorrow once morest Cristian Chávez, Rubén Chávez, Diego Domínguez and Gustavo Carbonel, accused of the crime of sexual abuse with carnal access aggravated by the participation of two or more people. There is another accused of rape on the loose, a fugitive, Mauro Nair Goncalves, and a reward of 4 million pesos for anyone who can provide information on her whereregardings.
Never more
“My daughter was a warrior and that’s why I continue the fight,” says Sandra in the Borges room of the Mariano Moreno National Library, where a press conference was held in which she participated along with her father, Ramón Zapata, Paula’s grandfather. , and Romina Doncel, coordinator of the team of professionals that is accompanying the family. In the first row was Andrea Lescano, the president of the Micaela García “La Negra” Foundation, on a very special day for her: Friday, April 1, marked the 5th anniversary of the femicide of “La Negra.” The Network It’s About No More Trafficking and the AUGe Butterflies were also present. “War is declared; just as they see me, with tears in my eyes, with a broken soul and a broken heart, I continue standing and continue the war. I am going to fight until the last day of my life so that my daughter has justice, so that the rapists pay for what they did. They laughed out loud as they abused and filmed her; I want that video to appear. They killed her from the day they raped her and she was still dead in life”, summarizes Paula’s mother, a warrior who cries and moves.
Zapata is concerned regarding the future because she, along with Paula’s three children and her own children, seven children in total, continue to live in the same neighborhood in Florencio Varela, surrounded by the relatives of the four defendants and who systematically violate the perimeter restrictions ordered by a judge. “I ask for life imprisonment for the rapists because for them my grandchildren are without their mother and I am without my daughter; she told me that she never wanted any girl to be hurt once more. I will not stop; They ruined my daughter’s life. If I fought so hard for one, imagine if I’m not going to fight for seven, so that my children and grandchildren have a decent life,” adds Zapata, assuring that Paula was “very tired,” panicked and terrified, and needed to be accompanied all the time. weather. “Today I understand her more; the fear that she gives to be alone and how the thoughts and memories torment you -she admits-. She wanted justice and during all these years she lived an ordeal from the day she was raped. The pain is heartbreaking and I don’t wish it on anyone, but she also gives me peace because she no longer suffers… Daughter, she rests in peace, fly high, mom will take care of it”.
“The fear that eats away at your brain”
Ramón Zapata, Paula’s grandfather, finds it difficult to speak. Something paradoxical is not easy for him: asking justice to do justice. “We have to go to schools to teach and so that man never once more does this type of aberration, because today he touched me, my family and my granddaughter, but this continues; They are seeing it every day. The man continues to involute. The woman has tremendous strength; behind every family there is a warrior, a fighter”, compares the grandfather and specifies that it cannot be that no one knows where the fugitive is. “Relatives of the Chavez got off two motorcycles and threatened another of my sons with iron and sticks, and my son had to go into a neighbor’s house, and they broke the entire bicycle he was riding,” Paula’s grandfather comments and clarifies that the family’s slogan was not to answer the aggressions and grievances. “The fear that eats away at your brain is bad and I hope that those fears will go away,” Ramón wishes.
police complicity
Romina Doncel, a specialist in gender and human trafficking, gets to the point of two fundamental questions. “We want you to believe Paula; no survivor is locked up in her house for five years because she is lying”, synthesizes Doncel and regarding the fugitive, Mauro Nair Goncalves, reveals that a month ago a raid was carried out in the sister’s house because a driver declared that he had taken him to that home. But they didn’t find it. The specialist urgently requested a meeting with Sergio Berni, the Minister of Security of the province of Buenos Aires. “We cannot understand how a person who cuts the grass, without economic means, is a fugitive for five years. We are certain that there is police complicity,” stresses Doncel.
Why did it take more than five years to come to trial, he asks Page 12. “Several of the defendants decided to be in disobedience until they were found. There was judicial laziness -confirms Doncel-. Not all rapes have DNA evidence; It is important to understand that we cannot continue thinking as in 1810”. The specialist highlights the role played by the Judge of Guarantees, Diego Agüero, head of Court No. 6 of Florencio Varela, and his secretary Martín Grizzuti, who accompanied Paula Martínez and Sandra Zapata, and recalls how the relatives of the accused have requested that they be dismissed Agüero and they have accused him of “feminazi” for having a gender perspective and empathy towards the victim. A question raised by Doncel resonates from the Borges room towards Argentine society: What kind of judges do we want? What kind of justice do we want?
On the side of the victim
Doncel warns that the Oral Criminal Court 4 of Quilmes “does not guarantee that we will be able to attend” because the family does not have a private lawyer, while the accused do have; the team of professionals that she coordinates is asking to be present at the trial. “Whenever a woman is abused she is expected to shut up. Paula was not silent, she rebuked them and pointed to them with their first and last names that she might identify. We don’t want more loose abusers in the streets”, states the specialist in gender and human trafficking. “It is not the first time that a survivor asks for justice and justice does not come. The State does not give answers and leaves the survivors without economic assistance and without housing assistance; they can’t get out of the house because of the panic attacks they have,” explains Doncel. Paula had dreams, hopes, she wanted to study. “We trust that there will be a trial with a gender perspective. We believe that the sentence can be exemplary”, concludes the specialist. The women of Mariposas AUGe shout: Paula Martínez present, now and always, now and always!” Warriors know how to turn pain into action.