Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner Thursday will convene special sessions of Congress next week to reform sex trafficking laws after a court acquitted 13 people accused of running a sex slavery ring.
Public outrage over the verdict led to clashes between angry demonstrators and police, and protests were held in at least seven provinces Wednesday, including Tucuman, where the sex trafficking case was being heard.
Kirchner will hold the special sessions to close loopholes in a 2008 law on human trafficking, which puts the burden of proof on adult women victims of sex trafficking to prove that they did not consent to being sex slaves.
“The reform eliminates that requirement,” said Fabiana Tunez, of the feminist group Casa del Encuentro.
It would also increase the jail terms for those convicted of human trafficking, and would order that assets seized in such cases be transferred to a fund for victims.
The Tucuman case centered on the abduction and disappearance of a young woman, Marita Veron, who vanished in 2002 at age 23.
Her mother, Susana Trimarco, launched a crusade against the trafficking in young women as she searched for her daughter, which led to passage of the 2008 law. But Trimarco has yet to find the woman.
After Tuesday’s acquittal, Trimarco said she received a call from Kirchner, “and she was shouting ‘I cannot believe it. I cannot believe it’.”
“Even the wife of President (Barack) Obama voiced her support to me. I thank her from the bottom of my heart and assured her that we are not going to stop fighting,” she added, referring to US First Lady Michelle Obama.
Prosecutors in Tucuman had sought between 12 to 25 years in jail for those accused in the case. The grounds for the court ruling were not immediately made public.
In Buenos Aires, demonstrators gathered outside a government office representing Tucuman province, smashing windows with rocks and other heavy objects.
In Tucuman itself, a large procession of people marched with a banner that read, “Justice for Marita.”
Argentina to reform sex trafficking law
