The year-old said she was required to have sex with at least two inmates, police spokesman Walrimar Santos said by telephone Thursday from Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon River, where the victim was transferred after nearly a month living with male inmates. By her account, officials did nothing β until the story erupted in the national media and outraged Brazilians demanded her transfer. Santos said the girl was not beaten or injured.
But the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, which said it had access to private testimony after her transfer from the jail, reported she was tortured with lit cigarettes on her fingers and bare feet to force her to have sex. Her cellmates cut her hair to make her look more like a boy and difficult to recognize, Estado said.
Police and human rights officials said the girl was out of touch in Belem and would not speak to reporters. The Associated Press generally does not identify people who may have been victims of sexual assault.
The girl was arrested Oct. She was transferred to a jail for women in Belem on Nov. Santos said separate jails for men and women do not exist in most towns in Para β a sprawling, largely lawless state twice the size of France. Days after the case was divulged, the Brazilian Bar Association announced that a year-old woman had been obliged to share a cell with 70 men in a police detention center in Parauapebas, in southern Para.
It was not clear if she was forced to have sex. Para Gov. Ana Julia Carepa said she was outraged by the alleged abuse at Abaetetuba. The federal government on Friday sent a task force of human rights officials to Belem to accompany the investigation after the girl and her family reported receiving death threats.
