Tourist suffers group rape in nightclub in Rio de Janeiro and is ignored when asking for help
Employees did not call the police.
• Photo: Rights Reserved
Brazil Police
A 25-year-old South American tourist (the country and name were not disclosed to protect her) suffered a collective sexual rape in a nightclub in Rio de Janeiro during a stopover in that Brazilian city on her way to the state of Bahia, where she intended to pass a few days. The young woman, who is a student, reported the case to the police and the Women’s Commission of the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro, Alerj, who decided to help her given the indifference with which the victim says she was treated at the club.
According to the complaint formalized this Tuesday at DEAM, Specialized Division in Women’s Assistance, of the Rio de Janeiro police, after the brutal sexual violence she suffered, the young woman asked for help from the security guards at the nightclub, Portal Club, in Lapa, city center, and was ignored by them. The site’s security guards and other employees to whom she, according to what she told DEAM, asked for help, did not call the police and she left the site completely desperate and bewildered, just like the friend who accompanied her on the trip to Brazil.
In the report she made to the police, the young woman said that, since she had to make a stopover in Rio, she decided to stay in the city for a few hours and ended up going to the club on the night of Saturday to Sunday. She met a Brazilian there and agreed to go with him to a more reserved area of the club, early on Sunday, to make them more comfortable.
But in this more reserved area there were several men, apparently called by the Brazilian with whom she had been drinking and with whom she agreed to go there, where the tourist was brutally raped in a group for a long time. The young woman cannot say exactly how many men raped her, she only knows that there were many, as she lost consciousness several times, probably because they put something in her drink before going to the more private place.
After spending many hours in panic at the hotel with her friend, not knowing what to do, she was advised to report the crime to the Women’s Commission and, accompanied by the president of that commission, deputy Renata Souza, she went to the police on Tuesday. Agents immediately entered the field and are trying to obtain images from inside and outside the club, in addition to subpoenaing employees and those responsible for the place.
