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Beppe Grillo’s latest statements have aroused some perplexity and real indignation. Grillo, in defense of his son Ciro accused of gang rape, records a video in which he asks why the alleged victim took 8 days to report.
The answer comes, stronger than ever, from the world of social media where it has spread the hashtag #ilgiornodopo.
The day after the rape
What did the victims of violence do the day after they suffered it? Some went to school, others to the cinema with their friends, still others to take an exam at the university. Then there are those who went shopping or who continued a relationship with the aggressor not perceiving the gravity of the fact.
Often reporting is not easy, just as it is not easy to talk about what happened with someone, sometimes even just recognizing that you have suffered violence is the most difficult step, especially if you suffer it at an early age.
We tend to want to forget, trying to erase from our memories what happened, out of shame or not having to relive those terrible moments. And so, there are those who report rape days later, weeks, months or years later.
And there are those who never report it for fear of retaliation. But this Beppe Grillo he does not seem to have understood it, indeed, his words embody all the foundations of the culture of rape.
In the video that the founder of the 5-star Movement recorded in defense of his son, he wonders why the alleged victim took 8 days to report and defines his son and his friends as “four balls but not four rapists”. Below is an excerpt from Grillo’s speech.
My son is in all the newspapers as a serial rapist along with three other boys. Do I want an explanation why a group of serial rapists, including my son, weren’t arrested? Why didn’t you arrest them? The law says that rapists are caught and put in jail and interrogated in jail or under house arrest […] Because you realized that the rape was not true at all, they have nothing to do with it. Because a person who is raped in the morning goes kitesurfing in the afternoon, and after eight days ago a complaint, it seemed strange to you. It’s strange.
And then there is no lawyer or it is me, the father, who speak and defend my son, there is the video! There is a video, there is the whole video, step by step, and you can see that there is consensuality, the group laughing, that they are 19-year-olds who are having fun, who are in their underwear, and jump around with the pea like that because they are four balls, not four rapists, and I’m sick of it being two years! And if you have to arrest my son who did nothing, then arrest me too, because I’m going to jail!
The story is intricate and it will be up to the judiciary to shed light on the case, in the meantime, however, we cannot fail to comment on the words of the former comedian. It was one of the first to do so Eva Del Canto, 29 year old of Tuscan origin who launched the hashtag #the day after “Because the survivors of rape and violence tell how dramatically normal and widespread it is not to have reported immediately” he writes in the caption of the post. She went to school the next day and admits she became aware of what happened years later and never reported.
Read also: Violence against women in 2020: the data is not encouraging
The girl who allegedly suffered violence from Ciro Grillo and his friends the next day went surfing and from the words of Grillo senior you can see some factors that have accompanied and fueled the culture of rape for years, such as denial of the accusation (there was no rape) e the delegitimization of the victim or victim blaming (why didn’t she report immediately if she was raped?). In short, as if somehow the fault was still the girl.
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The answers to Grillo
Grillo’s video immediately became much talked about and criticized, not only by other victims of violence, but also by well-known personalities belonging to his own Movement. At Il Giorno it is the deputy Federica Daga who comments on the words of the former comedian saying: “
I thank that there is the red code, which allows women to report even after six months from the fact, while I only had three months and in fact I could not report everything that had happened to me. I’m sorry for Beppe, justice is slow and I have been in litigation for five years
Then there is Patrizia Cadau, councilor of M5S to the Municipality of Oristano who writes on Facebook:
Beppe Grillo’s video […] it’s embarrassing for at least one reason. In one passage, Grillo argues that the alleged victim is not credible for having reported the rape after eight days. Anyone dealing with abuse victims knows that the removal of trauma, shame and guilt triggered by violence are the insurmountable wall that separates them from reporting.
Ultimately, we do not want to define Grillo’s son guilty or innocent, this task will be up to those in charge, but only to comment on the questionable methods of defense that come to blame a victim, or even presumed one, of “having reported late” and for this reason not to be credible. Such phrases only help justify the attackers. The result is the persistence of that culture that sees those who suffer violence as “whoever went to look for it” or as who “is inventing everything”. The result is to normalize a violence.
Read also: Clubhouse bombing: the new form of violence against women
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