The support of Argentine Actresses to Thelma Fardín in the resumption of the trial: “Now it is up to Justice”

“Now it’s up to Justice,” said Argentine Actresses, who are once again organizing in support of Thelma Fardín hours before the rape trial resumes against Juan Darthés, accused of aggravated sexual abuse for the acts committed in Nicaragua in 2009 when both were on tour for “Patito Feo,” the youth program they starred in. At the time he was 45, while she was 16.” Tomorrow the trial of our company Member Thelma Fardin against her abuser resumes. The accusation is carried out by the Brazilian Public Prosecutor’s Office,” the collective recalled through its social networks, about the witness statements that will be resumed on Thursday, January 27 and Friday, January 28, after they were postponed on December 1 in the second hearing of the trial.

Through the hashtags #AccionContraElAbuso, #PorThelmaYPorTodas and #JusticiaParaThelma, Argentine Actresses returned to be present as well as on December 11, 2018, when her partner made public her complaint against Darthés, and as they continued in each press conference and at the beginning of the legal instance. Recall that on Tuesday, December 30, 2021, when the trial began – which takes place in the city of São Paulo, in Brazil, the actor’s native country where he evades his responsibility – several members of Argentine Actresses organized at the door of the Specialized Prosecutorial Unit on Violence against Women (UFEM), where Thelma testified virtually.

The support of Argentine Actresses to Thelma Fardín in the resumption of the trial: “Now it is up to Justice” | Source: Instagram

There they read a statement that to these instances of resuming the trial, they remember: “We are together again to embrace Thelma, ask that her abuser be condemned and reaffirm that despite all the obstacles, this is a path that for women and dissidents in Latin America has no turning back: ‘We do not shut up anymore’ and we empower ourselves; we are transforming a system that has historically silenced us, naturalizing abuse, violence and impunity.” This case is just one of countless stories. Its enormous impact and effect prove it: After Thelma’s public denunciation, calls to the hotlines for victims of gender violence increased by 1240% in just 24 hours and added to the record of thousands of cases of sexual abuse per year, of which 65% are minors, “they continued.

In the same vein, they do not cease to make visible “the cruelty that the victim must suffer in the current judicial order”: that “instead of legitimizing it, it is questioned; he must face the dissection of his private life and the constant test of what a ‘good victim’ should be. Added to the trauma and the economic costs involved, from the moment she dares to denounce she is limited, exposed and subject to opinion. The construction of the social gaze, instigated and sustained by the mass media, is always clearly directed towards it. Their name, face, body, customs are published, their faults are sought but of the rapists, nothing. Silence,” they said. Faced with a patriarchal penal system that time and again tries to discipline those who denounce and those who dare to testify on their behalf, we insist: a judicial reform with a gender perspective and respectful of human rights is urgent. We demand effective reparation mechanisms, so that those people who have suffered these aberrant acts can feel recognized and accompanied, instead of judged, denigrated and revictimized,” they added.

Argentine actresses gathered in support of Thelma Fardín in the trial against Juan Darthés | Photo: Filo.News

From Filo.News, the journalist Micaela Robles, present on the day of the beginning of the trial, spoke with the actresses Dolores Fonzi, Silvina Acosta and Mirta Busnelli, and Malena Sánchez, who also highlighted the historical precedent that this instance implies. It is a historical trial and that could mark jurisprudence given that it is the first to involve three countries: Nicaragua (because it is the place of the fact), Brazil (where the accused is from and where he is residing) and Argentina (country of birth of the complainant), and since the three public prosecutors of those States,  they considered that there was more than enough evidence to charge the actor criminally.

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Original source in Spanish