Argentina: the trial against a woman who defended herself from a lesbophobic gang rape

On October 16, 2016, Eva Analía Higui de Jesús was walking through the neighborhood of San Miguel, located in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, when she began to be harassed by three men.

Higui was then 42 years old. The men surrounded her. «I’m going to make you feel like a woman, dyke», one of them told her. They knew her sexual orientation and it was not the first time they attacked her for it.

Between all of them, they threw her down onto the ground, they tore her clothes. They warned her that they were going to rape her. She managed to pull out a knife to defend herself against it. She plunged it into one of her aggressors, Cristian Rubén Espósito, who died. The others escaped, explains journalist Cecilia González for RT.

When the police arrived, Higui was still lying on the ground, unconscious, beaten, with her clothes in tatters. She was arrested and she was charged with murder.

The lesbophobic attack and the attempted rape were never investigated, but Higui did have to spend eight months in prison. Thanks to the LGTBIQ rights organizations that mobilized themselves in defence of her, Higui managed to be released in June 2017. But she continued to be prosecuted.

Today, almost five years later, finally, the trial against her begins and that will once again put justice in Argentina to the test, which every so often demonstrates its lack of a gender and human rights perspective.

Supports in Argentina

The case of sexist violence went almost unnoticed in the most influential media in Argentina. Higui had against her the fact that she is a woman, poor and a lesbian. At the time of the attack she had not even finished primary school. She had everything against her to invalidate her testimony. For many, it didn’t matter so much.

But the activism had an effect. The alternative media were present with her from the first moment. The international press picked up the story, published it in several languages, and the campaign in support of Higui began to grow. There were marches, open radios, soccer matches, ‘popular pots’ (ollas populares), and demonstrations to support her.

Even Higuita, the famous Colombian soccer player to whom she owes her nickname, sympathized with her, a football lover, a player on the courts in her neighborhood since childhood, outstanding in the position of goalkeeper.

Now, the demand is for Higui’s acquittal, imprisoned for defending herself and attacked for being a lesbian. This is what hundreds of people, who have come to support her at the courthouse, proclaim at the start of a trial that will take place in four sessions behind closed doors and with the attendance of 30 witnesses.

The last hearing will be next Tuesday. Then, will come the sentence that she and part of the Argentinian society hope will be in favor of a survivor and not her aggressors.