A mother who says she was held a sex slave in a police cell for nine months and repeatedly raped by officers in front of her newborn baby is suing justice officials.
The 29-year-old woman has named four police officers and one prison guard said to have taken part in the horrific abuse at a remote police station in Brazil.
Officers, she says, even drew up a sickening rape rota to decide whose turn it was to abuse her.
Picture shows the woman in the same cell as male inmates, undated. The woman who was held in men’s cell with her newborn baby accuses police of serial rape in Amazonas, Brazil. Note: Private photo. (Newsflash/NX)
A lawyer acting for the woman from the Amazon Kokama people said the attacks began after she was arrested, accused of domestic violence against her husband.
Buy when she was taken to the rural 53rd Police Station in Santo Antonio do Ica in the state of Amazonas, officers threw her in a cell and told her there was an outstanding warrant for her arrest.
Then, say her lawyers, she became a sex slave to the officers who systematically raped her until she was released in August 2023.
Now a writ demanding BRL 500,000 (GBP 66,750) in compensation from the state has detailed the horrific abuse she suffered.
The ordeal was so desperate she tried to kill herself several times, says her sworn affidavit.
The document states: "She served as a sex slave for a long period of nine months and 17 days.
"The psychological damages of the gang rape committed in the presence of the
newborn and during the period of imprisonment caused her permanent damage."
The abuse was so physically brutal, says her legal team, that two years later she still suffers from uncontrolled bleeding from her uterus.
Lead attorney Dacimar de Souza Carneiro says the abuse happened everywhere in the station - from the cell to the kitchen and even in the weapons arsenal.
Her writ adds: "The rapes happened at night, during shifts. In all areas of the police station. The other prisoners didn't say anything because they were also tortured."
And when she begged them not to rape her in front of her baby son, reports local media, they told her: "We’re the ones in charge here."
The court papers state: "The physical pain acquired as a result of sexual violence is added to the deep psychological wound that marked the Plaintiff's soul.
"The depression, the suicide attempts inside the prison and the constant fear are silent witnesses to the barbarity suffered."
When she was not being raped, the document alleges, she was locked in the police station's only cell with men in constant fear of further attacks.
Her writ alleges that police and justice officials failed to take proper care of her and robbed her of her dignity with "inhumane and cruel" abuse.
She was only spared when she was transferred to a women's jail in August 2023, and she told warders what had happened to her.
Now both the Amazonas Public Security Secretariat and the Civil Police say they are investigating her allegations.
State public prosecutors said on 22nd July that the abuse happened while she was vulnerable and without access to medical or psychological care following childbirth.
A criminal investigation is running in parallel to the civil claim, Attorney General of Justice Leda Mara Albuquerque told local media.
She said no form of violence would be tolerated and guaranteed support to the victim through a specialised care centre.
(Joseph Golder / newsX)