“Um jogo de gato e rato”: estudo sobre a vitimização de mulheres por estupro repetido

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to comprehend the process of victimization by repeated rape of women in Salvador city’s context, from the analysis of scenarios and interactions between victims and offenders. The fieldwork was conducted between 2014 and 2017, while working with a network of professionals that offer support to people experiencing sexual violence. The methodology adopted was of qualitative nature and the data collection was based on a semistructured interviews. In total, 20 interviews were conducted with women who were victims of repeated cases of rape perpetrated by known offenders. The major part of the sample suffered the violence more than one year prior to the interview, but remained exposed to the threat of violence for long periods of time. The interlocutors were relatives or lived as aggregates in the home of the aggressors. In this domestic scenario, the house was experienced as a hostile environment, a place where a routinisation of the predatory behaviour of the aggressor and of the victim’s resistance strategies. In the scope of primary victimization, the study addressed the psychological, physical and sexual violence. The psychological victimization was perceived as constant in the lives of the women, although the physical violence was more restricted to a specific time. The types of threats put forward by the aggressors helped to understand the procedural character of psychological victimization and its longitudinal effects. Thus, the repetition of the rape was interpreted by the victims under the notion of destiny, where the more serious marks do not have physical shapes, being conceptualised as a "wound in the soul”. With regards to institutional victimisation, there were situations indicating the lack of refuge for victims, from both public security agents and health professionals. However, the interlocutors identified in the “Serviço Viver”, a different model of victim care. In the public scope, the perpetrators pursued a line of action aimed at suppressing any suspicion of rape and the success of this strategy discredited the victim’s version. In this sense, the impact of tertiary victimization was perceived in the repercussions of rape on the family and other social circles of the victims. Finally, this research considers it necessary to strengthen the protection network for victims of sexual violence, especially rape, as well as a better integration between the agencies of this network and the improvement of intervention methodologies and techniques.