The Higui case is a brutal reminder of the oppressions that sexual dissidence must still suffer
Eva Analía De Jesús, better known as Higui, was acquitted last Thursday of the simple murder charge of a man when defending himself from a corrective gang rape in 2016. This was determined by the judges Gustavo Varvello, German Saint Martin and Julian Barefoot of the Oral Criminal Court Number 7 of San Martín after more than three hours of hearing in which, in addition to four witnesses, the accused herself asked to give a statement.
She was accused of simple homicide for having defended in October 2016 from a sexual attack perpetrated by a group of men. They wanted to rape her to “correct” her lesbianism. her attackers beat her and tried to rape her. "I'm going to make you feel like a woman, forra, lesbian", Told him Cristian Rubén Espósitoaccording to his story. She took out a knife and plunged it into her chest. She fainted and when she regained consciousness she was arrested. Despite the fact that she reported an attempted corrective gang rape and that she was found unconscious by police officers, with torn clothing and numerous beatings, her allegations were never investigated. She was charged with simple murder and spent almost eight months imprisoned.
A Crucial Testimony
One of the key testimonies of the trial was that of a police officer who was at the scene of the events and at the police station to which Higui was transferred. “That police officer said that she was badly beaten and that they went to her cell every so often to see her so that she would not convulse or to check that she was not broken. This is very important because it validates Higui's account”, said judicial sources
Higui's cause became one of the flags raised by the sexual dissidence in Argentina and was one of the most heard claims in the marches held on the occasion of the lesbian visibility day and the International Women's Day. "I would also defend myself like Higui”, can be read both in the surroundings of this judicial headquarters and in numerous streets of Buenos Aires.
