The Mary Ferrer Case and Brazilian misogyny
A case where selfies made it into a defense argument.
It’s November 3rd, social media all around the world have their eyes on the U.S. and the presidential elections.
At first, it seemed Brazilians would do the same, but a video published by The Intercept managed to gather more attention than anything that could happen abroad: the video showed a videoconference between four men and a woman. In it, one of the men makes statements towards the girl, saying he “did not wish to have a daughter of her (the girl’s) level”, and shows pictures of the girl, stating she posed in “gynecological positions” and “sucking on her finger”. He also tells her to not “fake cry”, that she had “crocodiles tears”.
This video is part of the court ruling of a rape case: the girl, Mariana Ferrer, was there as the victim, and the man making such remarks, the defense attorney.
The judge does not rule any of the lawyer’s statements as irrelevant, instead, he asks the girl if she would like to take a break, “drink a glass of water” and “recompose herself”.
Mariana Ferrer is crying, and refuses the judge’s offer, carrying on to say she’s “begging for respect”, and that not even people who are on trial for murder receive that kind of treatment.
Mariana Ferrer was originally a fashion influencer and was invited as a guest to a specific establishment, owned by the man that would, later on, become the defendant in her case.
The events took place on December 15, 2018.
Mariana said she did not remember anything from that night, and according to her mother, she arrived home crying, wearing bloody underwear and clothes that had a strong smell of sperm. On top of that, she was a virgin before the party, and exams showed her hymen had been torn.
Mariana reported the sexual assault the very next day; months after, forensic research found that the sperm in her clothes belonged to the businessman André de Camargo Aranha. Security camera footage from the night of the assault, which did not have the complete footage at the time police had access to it, showed the man taking Mari by the hand, and bringing her to a private place.
André de Camargo Aranha became a defendant in July 2019, in the case of statutory rape.
Mariana Ferrer did everything women are told to do, concerning sexual assault:
- Take care (she did; Mari was in a reliable place, for work, with friends she trusted).
- Do not be promiscuous.
- Save the evidence.
- Report to the police within 24 hours.
She did everything she was supposed to, and so did the cops: they carried out the investigation, tested the DNA, checked the place’s CCTV, and found the culprit.
Mari took it to social media and was open about what happened to her, sharing her heartbreaking situation, which put her in a vulnerable spot, exposed to “haters”, “trolls” and anything in between… but there’s nothing to worry about when you’re the victim, right?
Even if justice took its sweet time ruling her case, it’d be a good thing to bring it to light, to warn other women of the man that did this to her, amongst many other things.
However, last year, Instagram took Mari Ferrer’s account down, claiming it contained information that could lead to a lawsuit, which would’ve been her assailant’s identity. This flared up the discussion about Mari’s case, and it was since then, not only brought to Twittersphere, but Instagram accounts in support of Mari were created after that.
When it came to the actual ruling, things took a dark turn: not only was André de Camargo Aranha found not guilty, but Mari had to endure a cruel, misogynistic situation that questioned not only her character as a person but the claims she was a virgin at the time of the assault. In the end, it sent victims everywhere a very strong message: even if you play by the rules, and do everything “right”, there’s still a very big chance that not only you will be left with nothing, but you’ll also have to endure psychological torture and humiliation, in the very place that sworn to protect you.
No one should have to be the “perfect” victim to be treated with a modicum of dignity on a trial.
Even if Mari’s story had numerous inconsistencies, no DNA-based evidence, if she wasn’t a virgin, if she had washed her clothes or thrown them away if she hadn’t done everything women are supposed to do, she should still be given fair, respectful treatment, not as a victim but as a human being.
I will dare to say that even if she fell under the very small percentage of women who lie about being raped, her personal pictures should not play a part in the trial.
Point is, it’s 2020, and please, I plead to any defense attorney to show me one correlation between a selfie of a girl with her index finger on her lips and the truthfulness of a rape report. I am 29, at 15 I did pose with my index finger in my lips, so did my young sister, and pretty much any other friend we had around that time.
Does it have any significant meaning? Not really. It has no correlation with a girl’s sex life, and even if it did, how does rape play into the picture? If Mari had had many sex partners and pictures in bikinis on social media, would her case be weaker? What about… active sex life with no sensual pictures on social media? No sex life and no pictures on social media? If she wasn’t a party?
None of these factors account for Mari’s cases — not against nor in favor of her, and there’s not one single attorney in the world that could make a solid case based on this.
If the scenes from Mari Ferrer’s case trial were to be exhibited in a movie, most people would scoff at it, and critics would tear it apart, over how unplausible it is that such sentences could be said out loud during a rape trial in a post-medieval world.
It’s the sort of thing you just can’t write.
The defense attorney, Cláudio Gastão da Rosa Filho, and the judge, Rudson Marcos, are being heavily criticized on social media, by Brazilian Supreme Court Judges and the public alike (although not unanimously… obviously).
Mari can still appeal the case, but the damage is done, it’s public and I’m afraid it can be irreversible in the eyes of assault victims all around the country and Mari’s own psyche.