Dispatches International
CRYING OUT: PEDOPHILIA IN BRAZIL
Paulo Alves M.
was only five years old, from a small, poor city in northern Brazil, when
the abuse was discovered. Her body was bruised and damaged. After she arrived at the medical center in the nearest city, doctors noticed what had happened to her. “During the days I was at the
farm, he used to punch me, kick me, and make the calf walk on me. At night, he used to touch me with his genitals,” says the girl, who has the initials of M.M.A.G., but her name cannot be published due to laws protecting minors – I will just call her M. She arrived at the hospi- tal with almost irreversible internal damage. Her organs were partly di- lacerated. M.’s intestines, uterus and
genitals had marks from the hei- nous abuse she suffered, which occurred so many times she didn’t even remember when it actually started. Usually, victims of sexual
abuse stay at the hospital for a couple of weeks, just enough time to undergo surgery. Doctors have found children recover better in
16 South America: Brazil
the comfort of their own homes. M. stayed in the Intensive Treatment Unit for eight months, and endured four reconstructive surgeries. The medical procedures were necessary to reestablish minimal physiologi- cal functions, so that she could eat without a catheter, for example. “She had serious internal
damage, in her vital organs. It was the extreme violence,” explains Eu- genia Fonseca, coordinator of Pro- grama de Proteção às Vítimas de Abuso Sexual (or, in English, Sexual Abuse Victims Protection Program), referred to as ProPaz, an institution tasked with receiving and treating sexually abused children. “She lost her spleen and part of her ovaries,” Fonseca says, answering my ques- tions inside ProPaz’s office. The abuser of M. was the
uncle through marriage of the five- year-old. The man had asked his wife’s sister if he could take her two daughters – being M. and her 14-year-old sister – to his farm for a while, in order to take “special care” of them. The uncle was much wealthier than the two girls’ very poor family. Perhaps this is why
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