
A WOMAN who tried to assist a homeless man and was raped by him has been jailed for killing her attacker in self-defense.
Mom Roxana Santiago, 21, was sentenced to 6 years and two months in jail and her sentence sparked protests throughout Mexico.

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Roxana mentioned after the sentencing: “I’m saddened and disillusioned by the justice. If I hadn’t defended myself, I’d be lifeless.”
Nezahualcoyotl, the group the place she was attacked in Might 2021, ranks second for femicides and is without doubt one of the most harmful locations for girls in Mexico.
Nos Queremos Vivas (We wish to keep alive), a Mexican group working towards male violence, criticized the decision.
They mentioned, “No lady must be imprisoned for defending lives that the state doesn’t defend.”
Roxana moved to Neza to promote potatoes on the road to help her four-year-old son.
One evening she met the rapist on his means house and he requested if he might keep along with her as he couldn’t attain his condominium which was too far-off making him “homeless” and she or he agreed.
She was horribly sexually abused at her house by an unnamed youth Manwho hit her when she tried to combat again.
Roxana retaliated by slapping the person within the face, inflicting his nostril to bleed.
Then, whereas he was distracted, she grabbed a T-shirt, wrapped it round his neck and strangled him, they are saying.
She put his physique in a sack and dumped it on a avenue nook within the Benito Juárez space, police mentioned.
In a public letter, she wrote: “I felt scared, terrified, I didn’t need him to harm anybody else. I didn’t know what to do, I used to be in shock.”
“He had outraged me, destroyed my dignity, I felt humiliated, harm, I felt empty.”
“I do know I can be judged for defending my physique, for defending myself as a lady, for punishing my attacker, for taking motion.”
She continued, “I instructed them I killed him, however he raped me and I simply needed to defend myself.”
She additionally claimed cops verbally assaulted her and “by no means did knowledgeable exams” to show she had been raped.
“They launched me defeated however didn’t take any footage,” she mentioned.
The way to get assist
Ladies’s Assist has this recommendation for victims and their households:
- Maintain your cellphone shut always.
- Contact charities for assist, together with the Ladies’s Assist stay chat hotline and providers like SupportLine.
- If you’re at risk, name 999.
- Familiarize your self with the Silent Answer, the place you report abuse with out talking on the cellphone, as an alternative dialing “55”.
- Carry some cash with you always, together with change for a cellphone or bus ticket.
- Should you suspect your associate goes to assault you, strive transferring to a lower-risk space of the home—for instance, the place there’s an exit and entry to a cellphone.
- Keep away from the kitchen and storage the place there could also be knives or different weapons. Keep away from rooms the place you may be trapped, similar to the lavatory, or the place you may be trapped in a closet or different small house.
If you’re a sufferer of home violence, SupportLine is accessible Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 6pm to 8pm on 01708 765200. The charity’s electronic mail help service is accessible weekdays and weekends in the course of the disaster – [email protected].
Ladies’s Assist gives a stay chat service – accessible on weekdays from 8 a.m. to six p.m. and on weekends from 10 a.m. to six p.m.
You may as well name the 24-hour toll-free Home Violence Helpline on 0808 2000 247.

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