Part 2: When Poverty Results In Women and Girls Becoming Victims Of Violence
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The second part of my interview with Pablo Villeda, Vice President of Operations in Latina America. If you did not get a chance to listen to the first interview, you can find it by clicking here.
Here’s the second part of this powerful interview; if you would prefer to read the transcript, I’ve included it as well. I hope this helps you. I would love to hear from you, so please leave a comment below. If you enjoyed this post, share it with your friends and family!
Lots of love,
Judith
Judith: Pablo, thank you again for being here with us. To you my dear audience, as you know, last time we talked with Pablo about the International Justice Mission and the great work they were doing around the world and especially in Latin America.
Pablo: It’s a pleasure, Judith.
Judith: Which are the Latin American countries where you work in?
Pablo: We have offices in Guatemala, which is my native country, in Bolivia, in Dominican Republic, this is through International Justice Mission’s offices and we also work thanks to an alliance with a local organization in Perú and Ecuador.
Judith: Perfect, and why did you pick those countries from Latin America?
Pablo: Several years ago when we launched these offices we responded to information that was given to us by human rights organizations, by communities, by reports from expert people in the field of injustice against poverty, we performed local investigations gathering information and we realized that in these countries there was a need to implement our mission and there was an appropriate ambience, the opening from other organizations and obviously they aren’t the only countries from Latin America or the rest of the world that need justice strengthening but these are, at least now, the ones in which we can be effective according to the resources we have.
Judith: The last time we talked you told us about the child sexual abuse problem in Bolivia, now, there are always faces, persons and victims behind all these problems. You were talking about Marcela’s story, which is not (to be clear) her real name, in order to protect the victim’s real identity. Could you share this story with the audience?
Pablo: Yes, Judith…Marcela really represents thousands of girls, not only in Bolivia, but in the rest of Latin America, and I have met and helped many others along with my colleagues in the organization. I’ve met Marcela last year in one of my routine visits to Bolivia.
Marcela, her mother and her sisters live in the city of Alto, in a big city, with around a million inhabitants, the same as Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, and… when Marcela was 8 years old she was living with her mom, her sisters and her stepfather. Unfortunately her stepfather turned out to be a violent, aggressive man who punched, abused Marcela’s mom, but this abuse and this oppression became sexual abuse against Marcela.
What this man used to do was send his wife, Marcela’s mom, to do tasks, duties outside the house, he ordered her to leave so he took advantage of that, regrettably, to stay alone with Marcela, and what started with touches and insinuation, soon became sexual violence. The violence from this man was growing until, fearing that Marcela would tell what he was doing, he threatened to kill her, and also threatened to kill the rest of the family. It was not until the community, from the neighborhood where she lived, found out that Marcela, her mother and her sisters were locked up in the house by this man, they decided to help them escape.
Judith: That’s horrible. And her mother eventually realized what was happening to Marcela?
Pablo: One day Marcela’s mom found her crying, she already noticed her behavior was different, quiet, also because of the difficult circumstances they were living, she confronted Marcela and she revealed what indeed was happening, there was a lot of shame, picture that situation for an 8-year-old girl.
Judith: ¡8-years-old!
Pablo: Talking about sex is tough, ¡Unthinkable! Even more revealing something so, so hard, generates embarrassment, stigma, it’s a taboo, but she revealed that to her mom, her mom believed her, and she decided, to rescue her children with help from the community and go for the police.
Judith: How many years was she abused?
Pablo: According to our conversation with Marcela, she probably experienced these abuses for approximately a year.
Maybe, for our audience’s knowledge and understanding, it’s very hard for kids to talk about sexual abuse and takes a long time, they require therapy and counseling and really, an inner sanity process in order to remember and narrate, talk about these events; many of these kids reveal just parts and it’s not just after a therapy and inner sanity process when they can remember the details.
Judith: It’s so shocking, because in Latin American culture, which is a very conservative culture in some places, a 7 or 8-year-old girl, I can’t imagine that she understands what’s happening to her. What kind of information of content level she has at that age in order to know what’s going on? It’s incredible and really shocking. Then the community realized that this man had his family locked up, basically.
Pablo: Basically, yes, in one of the few times this man allowed Marcela’s mom to leave the house, she told this to the neighbors, they believed her, and came back to the house with her, punched, and broke the door, released Marcela and her sisters, one older sister and other younger sisters, they found them in really horrible conditions and in a malnutrition state, not like dogs, because we care more about our pets than that, they were worse, in a difficult situation.
They helped them, and then she was free to go and present a complaint to the police. The police offered some help but they really didn’t do much and the case advanced to nothing. Someone from that police station knew about International Justice Mission and informed us and that’s when we started to intervene.
Judith: It’s so important when you say a malnutrition state, what comes to mind first it’s how we lose our humanity, we lose that knowing that the other person is as human as you are, not only talking about this man who was doing the abuse, and obviously lost humanity with himself, but the persons who were around him and were being abused this way, but any person. A lot of times we see persons who are suffering, that live in poverty, that are hungry and we forget that they are as human as ourselves, we forget they are as human as the people from our family.
Pablo: One of the things, Judith, while working on this job, where I confronted my own humanity the most, my own self, is what would I do if my own daughter was raped? If my own daughter would be abused and kidnapped? Well, I would leave sky and land behind to rescue her.
But honestly what I’ve been confronted the most is, what if it’s my neighbor? What if it’s someone not from my family? In my community? And that’s when we remember, or stories like Marcela’s make us remember we are part of a community, that we have other human beings around us that suffer, maybe suffer injustice near or far away in other countries; and we have the huge privilege, those from us who can live freely, with some privilege, of being able to help, because any assault against humanity, their humanity, is really an assault against my humanity.
Judith: Yes, absolutely, what do you think stops people from doing this or what do think causes people to lose that piece of humanity living inside us? Especially when you are really close, when you live there, you are in the community and this is happening to your neighbor and you know there’s something wrong, what happens to us, what do you think?
Pablo: Well, this could be thanks to different factors, I dare to tell you, Judith, we sometimes fight with the absence of compassion, the absence of fraternity…and this happens to all of us, happens to me sometimes, not frequently, I’m ashamed to say this but sometimes my heart gets cold…
Judith: I recognize that too, that’s the point, I think this is part of the road and the battle for us, the times when we are connected to something bigger that ourselves. You know a little about my job; my spirituality is something very important for me, and sometimes we are connected to something bigger and sometimes we aren’t connected.
Pablo: And that’s why, Judith, programs like yours that show what’s going on, the injustices, they are so important for us to awaken that mercy, that inner fellowship. The other thing I wanted to tell you is that the cause of that apathy of wanting to help others that suffer injustice is also the feeling or pretty realistic conviction that even that if I do something, no change is going to happen, that feeling of hopelessness, almost cynicism, that injustice, corruption, abuse are never going to end and that always will be evil, and you know how injustice, violence, hopelessness are real, they exist, there’s impunity, there’s abuse, there’s exploitation but if we can change Marcela’s life, and that of all of the Marcelas from this world, if we can change communities and examples like her and many others like her that obviously time wouldn’t let me name them all; these are concrete examples of families, communities, nations, in which life is better as result of the work of engaged citizens.
Judith: Because that’s the key, for the people who are listening to us and are listening to this example. It is about continuing to walk on this road and work to continue to identify ourselves with the other human being, which is really a discipline; it doesn’t matter where you are… you are maybe in a place with less advantages or you are in a place drinking a coffee and you realize that the other person in front of you is a person as human as you are, and cries, feels like you do, right? It’s about thinking of our fellow man as someone who is as human as ourselves. It’s also about having the hope that we can do something that has an impact, because several times we hear that story and we feel so bad and like you said the first thing we think is: “I can’t do anything”.
Pablo: Yes you can.
Judith: We feel the pain, the empathy, all of this, but we decide that there’s nothing that we can do, that we can’t do something. I would love that you could tell us what a person can do that lives in a place where he or she is a neighbor of something they see that looks suspicious, or know there is something that is happening that is not good, what could they do? What could someone do to help a person like Marcela?
Pablo: Nowadays there’s plenty of information on the Internet, there are a lot of resources to search in order to get informed, to understand what’s happening; I would tell you that the important thing is not to stay silent. We can think that, because of our hopelessness, that it’s just a simple phone call, but let me tell you Judith that most cases we have seen that ended with a rescue of a girl, a boy, a family who is experiencing violence, started with a simple call, like this one. First of all understand what’s happening, analyze it, and report it. It’s not our function to judge if what’s happening is certain crime, but if we feel something is off we should report it.
It’s more common each day to see organizations that support victims and survivors in which you can count on and where you can report this issue. If we know the person who is the victim, we have a relationship with him or her, we can offer them help: What can I do for you? I found out about this, I’m watching this… I’m worried, if you need help just tell me, you can count on me. Maybe they will say: no, don’t say anything, shut up, it’s not your problem, leave me alone, but with time maybe they can get out and request help.
Judith: The amazing thing, in my opinion, from the story you just told us is that it was the neighbors who went there and tore down the door, and rescued this family from where they were.
Pablo: That’s it, and even more, after a few months and finally when the abuser was put in jail, indicted and brought to justice, and by the way was condemned to 25 years in prision; well, Marcela’s mom had nothing, in extreme poverty situation and a local religious leader talked to her community and asked if someone had a house or land where she could live, and you know what? Someone showed up and became volunteer and lent a house, very humble, which by the way was the house where I visited and met them, but he said “I have that space, there is a roof, there is water, and you can live there”. That’s where I met Marcela, her mom, her sisters and it was really wonderful and inspiring to see how in a sacrificial way, members from their community helped them.
Judith: Amazing, it really is; well, in the next and last segment from this series we will know a little more about what happened to Marcela, what happened to her mom, to her family, how International Justice Mission was later involved with the police, about the policeman who knew about IJM.
Pablo, thanks a lot for sharing this story with us; it’s something so inspiring, but also… I would say private. It is someone else’s story, though as we said, we are not using her real name, to protect the victim. Yet, I think each time we share stories like this I feel very touched because it’s the story of another person, this is what someone else has lived and is being shared with me, first, and second because a great good is being done when things like this are brought to light and are shown and aren’t kept in the darkness.
Pablo: Thank you, it really is.
Judith: Thank you Pablo.