A young trans woman was illegally detained in her home and then sexually assaulted by several police officers, whom she reported. The investigation went to trial without regard for the victim's basic rights. The same court that convicted another young woman, Belén, for a miscarriage, in this case avoided convicting the police officers for the sexual assault.   By Gabriela Cruz, from San Miguel de Tucumán. Photos: Ignacio López Isasmendi. Celeste was arrested in the bathroom of her home, which they illegally entered. They took her to a police station that had no cells for women. Provincial police officers assaulted her and locked her in a cell with other detainees. She witnessed them charging money to the prisoners who came in to rape her. She doesn't remember exactly how many days she was there, but estimates four. At some point, when they took her out to clean, she ran as fast as she could. She arrived at the Zenón Santillán Health Center in San Miguel de Tucumán. The doctors examined her, and she reported what had happened. She was 21 years old; it was November 2013. Three years later, she would receive a sentence, but not justice. It began with a court notification. She couldn't read it. Her teachers helped her: she had to testify in the coming days. She didn't know there would be a trial. She didn't know she could be a plaintiff. She didn't know the prosecutor investigating her complaint. And when the day of the oral hearing arrived, a new prosecutor took charge. Celeste listened, testified, cried, and screamed with helplessness that October of 2016, in the courts of the province of Tucumán.

The victim who could not be a plaintiff

  Between late September and early October of this year, Celeste arrived at the Open Doors Trans Education Center (Cetrans) to learn to read and write. Like many trans girls, she had dropped out of school; school was too hostile an environment. This space was different from anything she had known throughout her 24 years. “The education center isn't exclusively for trans people,” explains Fabián Vera del Barco, the director. “Of the 30 people enrolled, ten are trans women or transvestites. The rest are very young mothers, gay men, and adults who, for various reasons, have been excluded from the education system and find a welcoming place to finish their studies,” says the philosophy graduate who spearheaded the project. Celeste began working with the teacher assigned by the provincial Ministry of Education. She had only been attending classes for a few days when she received a court summons. She was required to appear in court to testify in the trial where she was the victim. “We knew about the sexual abuse case because it had appeared in the media,” says Fabián, recalling the news that circulated in 2013. “What we didn’t know was that it was still in the judicial stage and that, within the next 72 hours of receiving that notice that he couldn’t read, he had to appear to testify in the trial.”.   Fabián is part of the Tucumán Diverso group and campaigned for the Equal Marriage Law and the Gender Identity Law. As a gay man who decided to adopt, he knows how difficult it is to confront state bureaucracy combined with a lack of gender perspective. “We sought advice, because none of us are lawyers, and we asked for help from fellow activists,” Fabián recalls. This led to the formation of a support group, Justice for Celeste, and the coordination of actions with various organizations. The trial was imminent. Celeste was to testify as a victim in an investigation that had proceeded without her knowledge. The prosecutor, Estella Gifoniello, had barely had a chance to read the 20 volumes of the case file on the day the oral and public trial began. “We were going to a trial where she wasn't a plaintiff, where she didn't have a lawyer representing her. With a prosecutor who didn't know her,” Fabián explains. The judges who made up the court, Dante Ibáñez, Néstor Macoritto and Fabián Fradejas were well-known in the province: the same ones who intervened in the case of Belén, the young woman convicted for a spontaneous abortion.  

Seven police officers accused

  On November 27, 2014, as soon as Celeste escaped from the 4th police station, she reported the events to the hospital's police station. It later came to light that the report was not officially filed with the authorities. Celeste recounted that she also tried to report what happened to the prosecutor's office. There, according to her testimony, the police chiefs forced her to sign a retraction. Her word seemed to carry no weight—the word of a poor, trans girl, marked by exclusion and violence, with a family that neither understood nor supported the identity with which she identifies. The seven accused police officers were: Rubén Ernesto Aguirre, Walter Francisco Trejo, Miguel Antonio Concha, Ramón Julio César Ledesma, Roberto Antonio Gallardo, and Aldo Omar Quiroga. They went to trial for three crimes: depriving Celeste of her liberty (detaining her at her home without a warrant), sexually abusing her, and as accomplices in the abuses committed by the other detainees. The 'police family' was in charge of the custody and organization of the courtroom. The searches, the stares, the gestures highlighted the asymmetry of the space and the unequal conditions under which the parties arrived at the proceedings.

 

The defenders did not respect gender identity

  Throughout the hearings, the defense attorneys referred to Celeste using male pronouns, disregarding the Gender Identity Law. They pointed out contradictions in the statement she had been forced to sign in 2013. “It was shameful; she can’t read or write. They spent their time arguing about whether Celeste could recognize the signature, when she can barely sign her own name,” says Fabián. The evidence was a document she hadn’t read. “We managed to at least ensure that Celeste didn’t have to testify in front of her seven abusers,” recalls Fabián Vera del Barco. “We had to ask the prosecutor to please clear the courtroom of the defendants. In fact, the prosecutor was saying, ‘What a shame, because it would have been good if Celeste herself could point them out.’” The police officers had been identified in a lineup.  

"There is no justice because there is no access to rights."

  Soledad Deza, a lawyer with the Mujeres x Mujeres (Women for Women) group, which is handling Belén's case, accompanied and advised Celeste. Due to procedural delays, the victim was unable to file a formal complaint, and Soledad and her team had to provide support from the sidelines. They explained what was happening: Celeste had been denied genuine access to justice. “What is the true meaning of the right to access justice?” Soledad asks, and answers: “We are talking about a woman who belongs to a disadvantaged group. But we are also talking about an illiterate woman, which exacerbates the inequality she faces when dealing with the police, at the time, and with the judiciary. What is the true meaning of access to justice if this young woman hasn't even received the legal counsel necessary to file a complaint, a tool available to victims to push for an investigation or challenge a conviction, an acquittal, or a sentence like this one?” The answer comes with the weight of powerlessness and indignation. “There is no justice. And not just because there is no conviction: there is no justice because there is no access to justice, and there is no justice because there was previously no access to education and so many other rights,” says Fabián Vera del Barco. He is a university professor with postgraduate studies, “and I don’t really understand this judicial world; I need technical advice,” he reflects. “Celeste didn’t have any technical advice.” The demand for justice for Celeste took to the streets on the day of the first national women’s strike. In Tucumán, thousands of women dressed in black protested femicides and demanded Belén’s acquittal. At the doors of the Palace of Justice, they also raised their voices and their signs for Celeste.    

The sentence that did not condemn sexual abuse

  The defendants could not explain the illegal detention of Celeste inside her home, based on a law declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Ultimately, the court sentenced two police officers, Aguirre and Trejo, to five years in prison for unlawfully depriving Celeste of her freedom and for falsifying a public document. The then-head of the police station, Quiroga, was acquitted. Four others will remain under investigation, even though they had already been sent to trial. However, the court declared the charges of sexual abuse null and void: they were not convicted. Soledad Deza says the court had two options regarding the two counts of sexual abuse: acquittal or conviction. “They didn't rule on one of the sexual abuse charges, and on the other, they declared the charges null and void. For me, that ruling is a trap,” the lawyer stated after reading the legal reasoning that was released a few days ago. “What this annulment does is open the door for the defendants to argue that they are being tried twice for the same crime and thus escape punishment,” argues the feminist lawyer who denounces the lack of a gender perspective in the Judiciary. Soledad says she knows that the prosecution had instructions from the Attorney General to appeal the sentence, the only possible action to try to overturn the ruling. As of now, it is unknown whether or not an appeal was filed. Neither Celeste nor those accompanying her have received any communication or response.  

"We want to tell you how Celeste is doing, not what happened to her."

  “We want to stop counting bodies, we want to start counting lives. We want to tell how Celeste is doing, not what happened to Celeste,” says Fabián Vera del Barco. He insists: Celeste is the name that represents hundreds of trans girls who constantly suffer the violation of their rights. She emphasizes that the media coverage of the case brought visibility to one of the most vulnerable sectors. That 21-year-old girl who dared to report the police officers, three years later dared to return to school. The Puertas Abiertas Trans Educational Center became much more than just her refuge from an unequal trial. Today, the 24-year-old woman stands tall and dares to dream: “If I finish high school, I'm going to study law because they're not going to walk all over me again.    ]]>