Six men kidnapped and tortured a young trans woman in Paraguay

The victim is 22 years old, a sex worker, and fears for her life.

March 17, 2021

By Juliana Quintana, from Asunción

While women, lesbians, transvestites, trans people, bisexuals, and non-binary individuals were preparing to commemorate International Women's Day, at 11 a.m., a trans woman (whose identity is being withheld because she remains at risk) was found beaten and bound on the banks of the San Lorenzo stream in the city of the same name, 13 kilometers from Asunción. At least six men kidnapped and beat her in the first incident. Later, she was thrown into the stream by another group of people.

The survivor has not yet been able to file a report at the police station or in court because she is very traumatized.

According to Yren Rotela, a human rights activist and representative of Casa Diversa, who spoke to Presentes, the 22-year-old trans woman suffered two episodes of violence on the same night. The victim is a sex worker and, on the evening of Sunday, March 7, she was making her rounds in downtown San Lorenzo. She recalls that she went out to work and, between 5 and 6 a.m., a group of six men kidnapped, beat, and tortured her inside a vehicle.

Rotela explains that around 9:30 a.m. she walked along Mariscal López Avenue where she was seen by local residents. “She says they tied her up and hit her on the back of the head. When she woke up, she was in the stream and started crawling until she reached a nearby house. There she asked for help and fainted. The woman who found her thought she was dead. What they did to her is terrible; imagine if they had killed her, if they had left her there, or if it had rained and the current had swept her away. I don't know what would have happened to her ,” Rotela tells Presentes.

The homeowner called the police and the city's care networks contacted Yren, who accompanied her to the Calle'i Maternal and Child Hospital.

100 complaints in 2020

Yahaira López, executive director of the Trans Population program at the Association for Human Rights Education (ASOEDHU), explains: “People are violent towards us without even knowing us. They treat us as if we weren't people because we do sex work. We don't have homes, we don't have families, and on top of that, they treat us like we're creatures that don't deserve to live in this society.”

The Panambi Center for Documentation and Registration of Violence Against Transgender People has recorded an increase in cases of violence and discrimination since the start of the pandemic. According to Panambi's data, they received 100 complaints during 2020. 52% came from Asunción, and 31% from other cities in the Central Department. The remainder came from various other parts of the country.

“ Violence intensified during the pandemic compared to previous years. We have no other option than sex work; we have no opportunity to demonstrate our abilities. In Paraguay, we face a huge sexist and patriarchal barrier that prevents us from receiving trans employment quotas,” Yahaira explains.

Physical assault and discrimination were the main forms of violence suffered by transgender people in 2020. The number of reported cases doubled compared to the previous year. From 1989, the fall of the Stroessner dictatorship, until last year, 63 murders of transgender people were identified. Furthermore, Paraguay is the only country in the Southern Cone that does not have a law against all forms of discrimination.

This legislation could not only help improve the situation of LGBTQ+ people, 99% of whom are engaged in sex work, but also that of Indigenous communities in Paraguay, where nearly 75% of the population lives in extreme poverty. This is because, in most cases, they were dispossessed of their ancestral lands during the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989) and in the first decade of the democratic transition.

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