Photo: Esteban Marchand. The Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (Movilh) reported today two cases of domestic violence affecting an 18-year-old and a 54-year-old worker, both attacked by relatives because of their sexual orientation. The most dramatic case occurred in Quilpué, Valparaíso Region, where an 18-year-old culinary student was stabbed by his father, the victim's mother reported to Movilh yesterday.

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“I asked the father to leave the house. In the middle of that, he threw it in my face that my son was gay. He demanded I take away his last name because he was ashamed to have a ‘faggot’ son. Although I managed to take the apartment keys from him at one point, I made the mistake of leaving them on a table, so he took them again,” the mother said. During the argument, the young man arrived home from school and asked his father to give the keys to his mother. “The reaction was dramatic: the father challenged his son to a fight outside the house, brandishing a knife, and stabbed him minutes later in the parking lot. The young man was helped by neighbors and his mother. This is one of the most serious cases of homophobic domestic violence we have seen,” stated Gonzalo Velásquez, president of MOVILH.

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The medical report confirmed that the 18-year-old suffered a “penetrating wound to the left side of his chest and two stab wounds to his back.” “The case is now in the hands of the prosecutor’s office. We have provided legal guidance to the mother and her son, while also submitting the case file to the Undersecretariat for Crime Prevention to ensure free legal and psychological support. It is doubly serious that this case adds to the string of abuses occurring in the Valparaíso Region, which had the highest number of reports of homophobia and transphobia in the last year,” added Movilh.

Another case of domestic abuse

The second case involved a 54-year-old man on June 16th, who was attacked by his own sister and nephew at a home in the Pedro Aguirre Cerda district. Amid insults related to his sexual orientation, the victim was punched and beaten in various parts of his body, and was also struck on the head with a bottle. It is very sad that a 54-year-old person should have to suffer this abuse at the hands of his family members. In this case, we are also providing legal guidance. According to the 17th Annual Report on Human Rights of Sexual and Gender Diversity, prepared by MOVILH, 320 cases of domestic violence motivated by the victims' sexual orientation or gender identity were reported between 2002 and 2018.