Chileans protest reduced sex abuse sentences
A protest calling on Chile’s justice minister to resign over reduced sentences for at least 56 child sex offenders drew hundreds of people outside the presidential palace on Tuesday.
Purple scarves hung around the necks of some 500 women as they sang feminist chants and danced in front of hard-right President Jose Antonio Kast’s residence.
The abusers “have to go back [to prison], they have to be separated from society as a whole,” said cook Carmen Soto, 42, as she held a placard calling on Justice Minister Fernando Rabat to step down.
“I’m really angry because all of us at some point have gone through some form of abuse,” she told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Two weeks ago, local outlet Interferencia revealed that the sentences of a group of convicted rapists and other sexual offenders would be reduced.
The news pushed Kast’s approval rating further down to 26 percent—a new low of his eight-month-old presidency—according to pollster Cadem.
The president himself has said that the state “failed” the victims.
Impeachment trial
“They’re cutting funds for healthcare, they’re cutting funds everywhere, which is already serious, but this is like the cherry on top,” said Aurora Gonzalez, a 47-year-old administrator.
Rabat has said that he was following a Supreme Court guideline and could not refuse to apply the sentence reductions.
The opposition announced it will request an impeachment trial against Rabat in Congress, the first against a Kast-appointed minister.
Rabat has already garnered criticism over his past career as a lawyer, during which he defended former dictator Augusto Pinochet in a case of alleged embezzlement of public funds.
The case was closed following Pinochet’s death.
