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Personal ordeal with the rapist
By Beverly Donofrio, June 30, 2006
I was raped Thursday night, June 22. A friend and his sister had come over for dinner and left at around 10:30pm. Soon after, a neighbor knocked to tell me that water was gushing into her house from a construction site next door. I knew the builder, and she asked if I would call to tell him. I went upstairs, where I live, called the builder and forgot to go back down and double-lock the door. I then went on the internet looking up Benedictine monasteries, a recent preoccupation since I have felt for a while that I had gotten The Call to religious life, and was seriously investigating becoming a contemplative nun. I was researching what the communities were like and trying to find one that seemed right for me. At 12:10am, shocked that I was up so late, I put aside my laptop computer and promptly went to sleep. At approximately 1am, I was awakened with a rapist in my bed, his head inches from my own, a knife in his hand. “Shshshshhh, don’t scream,” he said in perfect English, “I have a knife.” I recognized it immediately as the knife I’d cut limes with earlier and left on the counter. “Don’t do this. This is not right. It’s sick. This isn’t good.” He told me I talk too much. He waved the knife. I said, “I’m going to be sick,” and then he put the knife down on the altar beside my bed, then showed me that both his hands were free of murder weapons. “Calm down,” he said. “It’s all right.”
The sexual ordeal lasted three minutes, the rapist never touched any other place on my body. Afterwards, he wanted to talk, “Are you Inglaterra?” he asked. “What’s your name? Is your name Penelope? I see you on the street. You look good. Are you married? Where are you from?”
I am blessed to live in a community of strong women, four of whom had been raped by this same man. They did not hide away in shame, but let the details of their rape be known. And so, I knew that the first two women had fought him and been badly beaten. The next two women did not fight him and had escaped, except for the disgusting sexual violation, physically unharmed. I had also heard that the rapist stays for four or five hours and likes to talk, arousing himself periodically to repeat the sexual assault. And so I decided not to answer one question or engage him in any conversation. I decided I would pray because I pray all the time, all day, anyway, and it might calm me down, and freak him out. I said my first Hail Mary in English and then realized, I should switch to the language of this man’s childhood when he was likely to have learned or at least heard the prayer, “Dios te salve María….” He told me to stop praying and I said, “I’m praying for you,” which had not been true, but as soon as I said the words, I realized that praying for him would be a very good thing to do. And so as I said the next Hail Mary, I asked God, Jesus, the Virgin, the Holy Spirit, all the angels and saints and any other mystical agent of good to come and make this man see the harm he was doing and go away. While I prayed he asked a few questions, commented that I was speaking Spanish, patted my shoulder, told me everything would be okay, asked if I wanted wine or beer. At last, I realized I pray to the Virgin Mary for help all the time, every day, and that I should pray to her ardently for help right now. And so after having switched to a Padre Nuestra, a loud one to let him know I was not listening to him, I went back to Salve María and he said, “Okay, I’m going, as he kissed me on the cheek, patted my shoulder and backed out of the bed.” I continued to pray as he said, “Good bye, you’ll be okay. Don’t call the police.” He walked through my kitchen/dining/living room and down the steps and out the front door. When I heard the door close, I ran down and double-locked the door. I tried what I thought was the emergency number, 611, and got a busy signal because the emergency number is actually 066. I called my friends and neighbors, a block away, Caren and David Cross. Caren called the police and an army of them arrived at my house before Caren and David did. They were on horseback, motorcycles and piled into trucks. They were courteous and concerned.
I was taken to the Ministerio Público, which would be the equivalent of a detective bureau in the States. A competent and compassionate woman, a lawyer, asked me to tell the whole story, remembering every detail. I was offered a translator, but I declined. A report was written. I was driven to the medical examiner, who extracted a sample of DNA to see if it would match the DNA of the serial rapist. I have no doubt that it will.
Back at my house, a virtual army of men were collecting finger prints, my bedding, walking all around my house, my property, trying to formulate a theory of how this man came into my house. A rope had been tied to the railing of my upstairs balcony, which gave access to my courtyard. The rope had been left there. My balcony door had been unlocked. The police demonstrated how anyone could walk along the wrought-iron, spiked fence that surrounds my courtyard, which I’d thought could keep an intruder out.
I had been lax. I hadn’t locked my upstairs patio door or double-locked my front door. Had I done this, it’s possible the rape would never have occurred.
By eight in the morning everyone had left. Not long afterward, I received a phone call from our new US consul, Ed Clancy. The mayor had called to tell him what had happened and to express his horror and grief. Ed wanted to know if there was anything at all that I needed or any way that he could be helpful.
There are two undercover policemen assigned by the state to this case, and they and the local police and detectives feel sick over this, as they told me over and over again. They are doing everything they can. The rapist had told the other women that he had been in jail in the States. The Ministerio Público has sent the DNA to the United States and has been waiting a while now for them to check their data and get back to us.
Rapists are notoriously hard to catch. An old high-school friend came to town this summer. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a serial rapist has been at large for three years, raping 17 times. This is in the United States, with its sophisticated technology and comprehensive databases. It is horrible what is happening in San Miguel, but I think we need to stop condemning our police.
I have been told by the detectives and the psychologist, who was sent by the town to interview me and offer services gratis, that the rapist has a pattern. He rapes women between fifty and sixty who live alone. He stalks them and attacks in their homes between one and two in the morning. I believe it happens on Thursday or Friday nights. I am sorry I have no time to check this last detail because I am off on a retreat this afternoon and needed to write this before I leave. I want, as much as I can, to ease the terror that I know many are feeling. We need to take every precaution to secure our homes. Lock everything you can lock. Get alarm systems installed.
The experience, although horrible, was not nearly as bad as I had imagined. Earlier, when women I actually knew had been violated, I was filled with compassion for them, horror at the act and dread that it could happen to me. I imagined what it would be like, grossly and in detail. So, when I awoke to this rapist in my bed, I was shocked and terrified, but I also simply thought, “Oh, so he’s here. This is it. Now I will be raped.” And then I began thinking how to make short work of it, and to get him to leave. In traumatic situations we do what we do. We are all wired differently. I imagine there are women who would simply have to fight. And there are women who would be terrified out of their wits. But with this rapist, the best tactic is to be calm and not act terrified. This rapist needs to dominate and feel powerful. If you fight, you enrage him because you have ruined his fantasy, and if you act terrified you titillate him. The best you can do is be calm and not afraid as much as you are able.
I don’t know how I knew to do this. I think it was the holy spirit. I acted terrified to arouse him so he could finish his business, and then as I said, I prayed, which calmed me and was not very titillating to him.
The outpouring of love and concern from both foreign and Mexican communities has been heartening and healing. I have always heard that we are all one. I never quite understood it the way I do now. Each time I’d heard how a woman among us had been raped I felt sick and outraged. Now, I am the one who was raped, and I am the instrument of suffering. One person is hurt and everyone hurts. It is easy to see because we are a community. But it applies to the whole world. In our community there is a sick member. That is all that he is.
I pray that the rapist gets caught and this never happens again, but if you awake in the night to a rapist in your bed or in your house, pray immediately to the Virgin Mary, known as Guadalupe in these parts, and ask her to help him and to help you. It may drive him out of your house, this time, before he even rapes you. And speak only Spanish. He wants to hear English.
Violence against women, hidden behind a wall of silence
By Tania Noriz
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of articles on domestic violence in San Miguel. Next week, women speak candidly of their experiences.
It all began with a shove, then punches. Next, Mónica’s boyfriend hit her with a baseball bat. That was when she decided to ask for help.
After facing difficulties at the District Attorney’s office when she reported her physical and economic mistreatment, and rape, Mónica decided to drop the charges and only seek child support for her 18-month-old son.
Domestic violence is not based on race or social class, and it occurs in San Miguel as frequently as in other parts of the globe. Mónica’s story forms but a small part of the local statistics on violence against women.
In San Miguel there are three institutions that have prevention programs and report violence to the authorities: Centro para los Adolescentes de San Miguel de Allende (CASA), the Domestic Violence center of San Miguel (CENAVI) and the municipal Institute for Women (IMAM).
According to a December 2005 survey of 800 women conducted by the municipal Institute for Women, 300 of those surveyed admitted to being victims of monetary, psychological and/or physical abuse. The survey of women aged from 15 to 59 years revealed that the highest levels of violence occurred against women aged between 25 and 44. Most of these women have only elementary school education, and 43 percent of them are married. The predominant type of violence recorded was psychological. The survey also indicated that 73 percent of the aggressors were the women’s husbands and that 70 percent of cases were not reported to authorities.
“Violence against women is linked to the imbalance in the relationships of power between the sexes. This circle of violence ignores social position. It is hard to quantify and eradicate,” said Araceli Martínez, director of IMAM. “It is something that exists behind the walls of the home … behind a barrier of silence.”
For Alejandra Saucillo Romero, psychologist and head of the Violence Prevention Program at CASA, “violence against women is expressed differently according to individuals and the circumstances in which it occurs—physical, psychological or economic. It includes shouting, maltreatment, humiliation, kidnapping, hitting, torture, rape and even death.”
Since 1981, CASA has supported female victims of violence. According to Saucillo, physical and psychological violence are reported at the same level in the statistics that she has compiled for the institution.
The CASA report
According to a 2004 report on sexual and domestic violence by CASA, of a total of 506 abused women aged between 15 and 59, 70 percent were beaten, 94 percent were insulted, and 40 percent were blackmailed by threats of taking their children away.
CASA has several programs dedicated to preventing domestic violence, but their success is hard-won because victims consider abuse a private issue. “Statistics are not representative, because very few women accept that they are subject to violence,” said Saucillo.
Saucillo took over as head of the program in September 2005. Since then, her office has received 80 reports of abuse that were not filed at the District Attorney’s office or reported to the Family Services agency (DIF).
Yet, according to statistics provided by Saucillo, 206 reports of abuse were made to DIF’s domestic violence office from April to September 2005.
Fear is the main reason that women deny being victims of abuse and violence—fear and distrust of authorities, fear that they will not believe them, or fear that they deserved or provoked what happened to them, fear of losing their partner, and fear of losing their children.
This is the case of Claudia, 25, who suffered abus twice—first by her father, then by her boyfriend. “My mother, my own family and my boyfriend’s family knew what was going on.
They never wanted to help me. Once, I went to the District Attorney’s office. The procedures were very long, and I had to speak with so many people. Then, after filing the report, nothing happened, so I decided to go back home.”
Saucillo explained that her program is divided into two areas: prevention and treatment. To aid in the prevention of abuse, educational lectures are presented in rural communities such as Cruz del Palmar, La Cieneguita and Los Rodríguez.
Psychological counseling and victim advocacy, such as assisting with filing reports, constitute the treatment component of the program. “In this way, we attack the problem both with prevention and reporting.”
More reports from rural women are filed than from urban women, even though the incidence of abuse is similar. “People in the city are more reticent to report abuse because of what other people may say,” she remarked.
Alcohol and drugs beget violence
Statistics from the municipal Institute for Women (IMAMU) also show that few reports come from the urban zone. “Women in the city do not report domestic violence due to fear or shame. They fear becoming a target of gossip,” said Martínez.
The Family Service’s Center for Domestic Violence of San Miguel (CENAVI) also counsels victims of violence, receiving approximately 400 reports annually. The majority of cases are requests for alimony and child support. The Center has programs for counseling offenders and prevention of alcoholism and drug addiction. Seventy percent of complaints are requests for assistance in dealing with monetary issues; the other 30 percent include reports of mental and physical abuse. Yet the center is essentially a toothless tiger as officials, all male, can only attempt to reach negotiated agreements between the two parties and lack the legal authority to implement those agreements. So the rights of women and their children remain unprotected.
Most of the reports received by CASA, CENAVI and the municipal Institute for Women come from women whose husbands are alcoholics. “Violence comes to be a way of relating within a relationship—a way of showing love,” said Saucillo. “This is a cultural problem, one based in a fight for power, lack of education, lack of solutions to problems, and drug addiction and alcoholism.”
For Martínez (IMAMU), violence against women is based in ignorance. “Women invest a lot of time trying to change their partners. Also many believe their husband or other male relatives have the absolute right to treat them badly. Women do not know there are places that offer free support to solve these matters. The problem is repetitive. In most cases, a woman who has been mistreated follows the same pattern and repeats that behavior with her children. Then, a vicious circle of violence is created among within the family.”
Importance of disclosure
“Authorities, such as officers at the District Attorney’s office, are sometimes accomplices in violence against women,” said Martínez. “At times they do not take reports seriously because of lack of physical proof, wanting to see bruises and injuries as evidence before taking action. We know also that they sometimes blame women.”
Saucillo agrees: “When a woman arrives with bruises, it is easier to detain the aggressor. Article 21 of the State Penal Code includes both psychological and verbal violence. Nevertheless, if the District Attorney’s agents do not see bruises, often they do not proceed with the report.”
“I grew up with the idea that I was a fool. When I got married, my husband confirmed it,” recalls Sandra. “I was a good-for-nothing, a useless person who did not know how to do anything. One day, he knocked me down and he said it was my fault that it happened because I did not do things well.
One day, I became so afraid I left him. It was the most intelligent thing I could do.”
Where to go if you are in a situation of domestic violence
(note none of these offices offer interpreters, so take a bilingual friend/interpreter with you)
CENAVI
San Antonio Abad and Insurgentes
Monday to Friday, 9am–4pm
Free service
152-3910
Public Ministry
Esparza Oteo 17, colonia Guadalupe
24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Free service
154-9450
Instituto Municipal de la Mujer
(Municipal Institute for Women)
New administration building
Monday to Friday, 8:30am–4pm
Free service
120-4328
CASA
Santa Julia 15, colonia Santa Julia
Monday to Friday, 8am–3pm
Free service
154-6060
Derechos Humanos (Human Rights)
María Grever 14, colonia Guadalupe
Monday to Friday, 9am–3pm
152-5434
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