Video: the heartbreaking testimony of a victim of the Corrientes children's home investigated for abuse and torture

The Corrientes Justice is advancing the investigation of complaints against Sonia Prystupczuk, the director of the Rincón children's home of Luz in Gobernador Virasoro, Corrientes province, for alleged abuse and torture against the children who lived there. Meanwhile, new horrors are known. The cause was joined yesterday by the chilling testimony of a 17-year-old girl who, according to her statements, wanted to commit suicide three times because of the physical and verbal aggressions she suffered during the two years she lived there.

As Infobae learned, the young woman, identified as “A”, told Cámara Gesell on Monday in the presence of prosecutors, judges and juvenile advisers, and gave details of the torment she faced while she spent part of her childhood in charge of S.P., the head of the Rincón de Luz and María de Nazaret homes, and some of the counselors who worked in the place. Before testifying before the Justice, he filmed a short video illustrating this note where he recounted his sufferings. His face is protected and his voice was distorted to protect his identity.

“I went through things in there that no boy should ever go through and that aren't right. They used me there inside the home,” the victim lamented at the beginning of the video. She also said that she received “sanctions” for which she had to stay locked in her room for long periods of time. “I just came down to eat,” he said.

The minor said that the person responsible for the household hit her once, a situation that served as a trigger for her to decide to escape and seek refuge in the house of one of her grandmothers. With the support of his immediate family member, “A” made a second complaint - he had filed an initial one but they did not take it - to show what was happening inside the orphanage, but he did not receive the judicial response he expected.

Thus, he tearfully revealed that he wanted to commit suicide “three times” inside the home. “I cut myself, I wanted to hang myself several times because I experienced situations that were making me tired. I think any boy should get tired of it,” he explained. He did not receive psychological care, nor did anyone pay attention to his complaints, as stated in his statement.

“I want this all to end,” the teenager begged.

“A”'s shocking statement comes a day after another alleged victim of abuse and torture in the same juvenile center came before Judge Silvia Erika Benitez and confirmed her desire not to move forward with the investigation. However, his brother, identified as D.I.M., came forward as a complainant to keep the case standing.

In her criminal complaint, D.I.M., requests the immediate arrest of Prystupczuk “because of her status as a caretaker and education in real competition for the crime of facilitating prostitution”. Likewise, the complainant, represented by lawyer Eduardo Echegaray Centeno, demands the indictment and arrest of a man identified as “M”, owner of a shoe store located in the aforementioned town of Corrento and accused of sexual abuse “for taking advantage of the sexual immaturity of the victim”.

Although the Correntina Justice had two complaints against Prystupczuk filed in 2016 and 2021, as Echegaray Centeno confirmed to Infobae, the investigation was stalled until February 21, when a boy as young as 14 was found hanged inside a room in Rincón de Luz. That fact was decisive for the authorities to review the case.

L.N.A's complaint is particularly graphic. Former employee of the “Rincón de Luz” household, she appeared before the Correntina Justice on April 8 last year and reported “irregularities” from the moment that the juvenile center began to operate.

In her presentation, she listed different episodes that caught her attention and that exposed the mismanagement of the owner of the household. The woman stressed that the inmates did not have “regular medical control”, nor did they have dental control. She also added that another teenager, aged 17, had a cyst in one of her ovaries and on one occasion she menstruated twice during the same month, but she was still not referred to a gynecologist who could treat her conditions.

Another situation that caught L.N.A.'s attention concerned one of the minors who smoked inside the home and with the permission of the director. This young woman was also the protagonist of another episode in Rincón de Luz: on one occasion the director called the complainant and a colleague to her office and informed them that the inmate, when she was 15 years old, had had sexual relations with an adult. That man was “M”, the owner of the shoe shop already mentioned.

Despite the seriousness of the incident, the head of the juvenile center warned the employees that she “had solved everything”, as stated in the file. Soon, the home received footwear for all the boys who lived in the place.

Finally, the then employee of the household investigated for alleged abuse and torture reported that some of the prisoners had Prystupczuk's alleged permission to stay out of the establishment until late at night, and with unknown persons.

In the midst of these accusations, the former director used her Facebook account to announce her removal from the Coordination of Institutions of the Children's Directorate, a provincial position she held in parallel to her role as head of the “Rincón de Luz” and “Maria de Nazareth” homes. In his publication he indicated that he did so with the purpose of “clearing” his good name in the corresponding field: “Justice”.

KEEP READING: