Bolivian Mennonite gas-facilitated rapes

Last updated
Bolivian Mennonite gas-facilitated serial gang-rape case
Location Manitoba Colony, Bolivia
Date2005 (2005)–2009 (2009)
Victims>151
PerpetratorsJacobo Neudorf Enss, Jacobo Wall Wall, Franz Dick Wall, David Guenther Banman, Abraham Peters Dick, Jacob Wiebe Knelsen, Johan Bolt Ham, Jacobo Wiebe Lowen, Peter Friesen Neufeld, Heinrich Knelsen Klassen; Peter Wiebe Wall (accomplice)

The Bolivian Mennonite gas-facilitated rapes refers to mass serial rapes by a group of men over at least four years in the Bolivian Mennonite settlement of Manitoba Colony. At least nine male members of the colony sprayed a veterinary sedative through window screens to render whole households unconscious. They then entered homes and raped the residents, particularly women and girls (but also small children). [1] The minimum number of known victims stands at 151. [2] Many victims were raped on multiple occasions. The youngest victim was three years old, the oldest was 65. [1] Multiple victims were pregnant and one delivered an extremely premature baby after going into labor following a rape. [3] There are believed to have been both adult and child male victims as well, but none were publicly identified. [2] The perpetrators were in some cases blood relatives of the victims, the crimes thus including incestuous abuse. [4]

The victims awoke with, variously, bruising, bleeding, semen deposits, torn clothing, missing clothing, rope burns, or dirty handprints on their bodies, but could not clearly remember what happened due to the anesthetic's effect on short-term memory. [1] Apparent dreams, brief impressions, "head-thumping stupor," and inability to react were also reported. The series of mystery attacks were thus initially attributed to Satan, demons, or phantoms; a popular name for the crimes is ghost rapes of Bolivia. A culture of modesty, privacy and/or secrecy initially prevented victims from communicating about their experiences, even amongst household members and families.

The case is somewhat poorly documented in part because the insular Mennonite community chooses to be socially and culturally isolated, because few if any of the Plautdietsch-speaking victims know Bolivian Spanish, [4] and because general education in the community is minimal and sexual education is poor or non-existent, preventing the women of the community from effectively documenting the attacks. [1]

The initial series of rapes was interrupted when two of the perpetrators were caught breaking and entering in June 2009. They implicated seven others within the Manitoba Colony community of about 2,500 people. The culprits stated they had been committing the rapes since 2005. [1] The men were turned over to Bolivian law enforcement for prosecution. [2]

The men arrested,[ clarification needed ] with their ages in 2009: [5]

The veterinarian who supplied the anesthetic gas, Peter Wiebe Wall, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. [6] Seven convicted rapists were sentenced to 25 years each. [1] The ninth accused man, Jacob Neudorf Enns, escaped prison[ when? ] and remained a fugitive as of 2011. [6]

Many residents of the colony now have steel doors and window bars on their homes. [1]

The story inspired the novel Women Talking by Miriam Toews, which has been adapted as a film. [4]

The "ghost rapes of Bolivia" may be part of a larger pattern of systemic sexual and incestual abuse within the Mennonite Old Colonies. [1]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mennonites</span> Anabaptist groups originating in Western Europe

Mennonites are a group of Anabaptist Christian church communities tracing their roots to the Radical Reformation. The name is derived from that of one of the early prominent leaders of the Anabaptist movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561). Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radical Reformation, Simons articulated and formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss Anabaptist founders as well as early teachings of the Mennonites founded on the belief in both the mission and ministry of Jesus. The original Anabaptist followers had held such beliefs with great conviction, despite persecution by various Roman Catholic and Mainline Protestant states. Formal Mennonite beliefs were codified in the Dordrecht Confession of Faith (1632), which affirmed "the baptism of believers only, the washing of the feet as a symbol of servanthood, church discipline, the shunning of the excommunicated, the non-swearing of oaths, marriage within the same church", strict pacifistic physical nonresistance, anti-Catholicism and in general, more emphasis on "true Christianity" involving "being Christian and obeying Christ" as they interpret it from the Holy Bible.

Incapacitating agent is a chemical or biological agent which renders a person unable to harm themselves or others, regardless of consciousness.

Some victims of rape or other sexual violence incidents are male. It is estimated that approximately one in six men experienced sexual abuse during childhood. Historically, rape was thought to be, and defined as, a crime committed solely against females. This belief is still held in some parts of the world, but rape of males is now commonly criminalized and has been subject to more discussion than in the past.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian Mennonites</span> Ethnic group

The Russian Mennonites are a group of Mennonites who are the descendants of Dutch and North German Anabaptists who settled in the Vistula delta in West Prussia for about 250 years and established colonies in the Russian Empire beginning in 1789. Since the late 19th century, many of them have emigrated to countries which are located throughout the Western Hemisphere. The rest of them were forcibly relocated, so very few of their descendants currently live in the locations of the original colonies. Russian Mennonites are traditionally multilingual but Plautdietsch is their first language as well as their lingua franca. In 2014, there were several hundred thousand Russian Mennonites: about 200,000 live in Germany, 74,122 live in Mexico, 150,000 in Bolivia, 40,000 live in Paraguay, 10,000 live in Belize, tens of thousands of them live in Canada and the US, and a few thousand live in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miriam Toews</span> Canadian writer (born 1964)

Miriam Toews is a Canadian writer and author of nine books, including A Complicated Kindness (2004), All My Puny Sorrows (2014), and Women Talking (2018). She has won a number of literary prizes including the Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award for her body of work. Toews is also a three-time finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a two-time winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.

Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially at fault for the harm that befell them. There is historical and current prejudice against the victims of domestic violence and sex crimes, such as the greater tendency to blame victims of rape than victims of robbery if victims and perpetrators knew each other prior to the commission of the crime.

In scholarly literature and criminology, gang rape, also called serial gang rape, party rape, group rape, or multiple perpetrator rape, is the rape of a single victim by two or more violators. Gang rapes are forged on shared identity, religion, ethnic group, or race. There are multiple motives for serial gang rapes, such as for sexual entitlement, asserting sexual prowess, war, punishment, and, in up to 30% of cases, for targeting racial minorities, religious minorities, or ethnic groups.

Rape is a type of sexual assault initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, under threat or manipulation, by impersonation, or with a person who is incapable of giving valid consent.

Rape by gender classifies types of rape by the sex and/or gender of both the rapist and the victim. This scope includes both rape and sexual assault more generally. Most research indicates that rape affects women disproportionately, with the majority of people convicted being men; however, since the broadening of the definition of rape in 2012 by the FBI, more attention is being given to male rape, including females raping males.

Statistics on rape and other sexual assaults are commonly available in industrialized countries, and have become better documented throughout the world. Inconsistent definitions of rape, different rates of reporting, recording, prosecution and conviction for rape can create controversial statistical disparities, and lead to accusations that many rape statistics are unreliable or misleading.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rape</span> Type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse without consent

Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person who is incapable of giving valid consent, such as one who is unconscious, incapacitated, has an intellectual disability, or is below the legal age of consent. The term rape is sometimes used interchangeably with the term sexual assault.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ages of consent in the United States</span> U.S. law on age of consent to sexual activity

In the United States, each state and territory sets the age of consent either by statute or the common law applies, and there are several federal statutes related to protecting minors from sexual predators. Depending on the jurisdiction, the legal age of consent is between 16 and 18. In some places, civil and criminal laws within the same state conflict with each other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexual violence in South Africa</span>

The rate of sexual violence in South Africa is among the highest recorded in the world. Police statistics of reported rapes as a per capita figure has been dropping in recent years, although the reasons for the drop has not been analysed and it is not known how many rapes go unreported. More women are attacked than men, and children have also been targeted, partly owing to a myth that having sex with a virgin will cure a man of HIV/AIDS. Rape victims are at high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS owing to the high prevalence of the disease in South Africa. "Corrective rape" is also perpetrated against LGBT men and women.

Rape in the United States is defined by the United States Department of Justice as "Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim." While definitions and terminology of rape vary by jurisdiction in the United States, the FBI revised its definition to eliminate a requirement that the crime involve an element of force.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mennonites in Bolivia</span> Religious denomination in South America

The Mennonites in Bolivia are among the most traditional and conservative of all Mennonite denominations in South America. They are mostly Russian Mennonites of Frisian, Flemish, and Prussian descent. As of 2013, there were about 70,000 Mennonites living in Bolivia; that population has grown to around 150,000 as of 2023.

Marital rape is illegal in all 50 US states, though the details of the offence vary by state.

Manitoba Colony is an ultraconservative Mennonite community in the Santa Cruz Department or eastern lowlands of Bolivia. Conservative plain dress Old Colony Mennonites from Mexico and Canada began moving to Bolivia in the 1960s. Manitoba Colony, one of dozens of Mennonite colonies in Bolivia, was founded in 1991, named after a much larger colony in Mexico, which, in turn, has its origins in the Canadian province of Manitoba. The colony has a population of approximately 2,000. Members of the colony speak Plautdietsch, dress plainly, and do not use electricity or automobiles.

The name Old Colony Mennonites is used to describe that part of the Russian Mennonite movement that is descended from colonists who migrated from the Chortitza Colony in modern Ukraine near Zaporizhia to settlements in Canada. Theologically, Old Colony Mennonites are largely Conservative Mennonites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexual violence in Finland</span> Overview of sexual violence in Finland

Sexual violence is defined as the use of force or manipulation to get someone to engage in unwanted sexual activity without his or her consent. Such violence takes place in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships, as well as outside intimate relationships. All sexual offenses violate the basic right of sexual self-determination. In Finland, sexual violence and taking advantage of a person is always a crime, even if the assaulter was the victim's spouse, relative or their friend. Sexual offences include but are not limited to rape, forcing someone into a sexual act and taking sexual advantage of a person. The victims of sexual violence are predominantly women, but 26 percent of Finnish men have experienced sexual harassment since their 15th birthday.

<i>Women Talking</i> (novel) 2018 novel by Miriam Toews

Women Talking (2018) is the seventh novel by Canadian writer Miriam Toews. Toews describes her novel as "an imagined response to real events," the gas-facilitated rapes that took place on the Manitoba Colony, a remote and isolated Mennonite community in Bolivia: Between 2005 and 2009, over a hundred girls and women in the colony woke up to discover that they had been raped in their sleep. These nighttime attacks were denied or dismissed by colony elders until finally it was revealed that a group of men from the colony were spraying an animal anaesthetic into their victims' houses to render them unconscious. Toews' novel centers on the secret meetings of eight Mennonite women who, on behalf of the other women in the colony, must decide how to react to these traumatic events. They have only 48 hours before the colony men, who are away to post bail for the rapists, return.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Friedman-Rudovsky, Jean. "The Ghost Rapes of Bolivia". Vice.com. Photographs by Noah Friedman-Rudovsky. Retrieved 2023-03-15.
  2. 1 2 3 Pressly, Linda (2019-05-16). "The rapes haunting a place that shuns the 21st Century". BBC News. Retrieved 2023-03-15.
  3. ↑ Schipani, Andres. "'The work of the devil': crime in a remote religious community". The Guardian. Retrieved 2023-03-15.
  4. 1 2 3 Friedman-Rudovsky, Jean (2023-01-27). "I Covered the Story That Inspired 'Women Talking'". Time. Retrieved 2023-03-15.
  5. ↑ "Nuevas violaciones en 2 colonias menonitas". Diario El Día Santa Cruz (eldia.com.bo) (in Spanish). 2009-09-03. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
  6. 1 2 Muir, Ross W. (2011-09-14). "Bolivian Mennonite rape trial ends in convictions". Canadian Mennonite Magazine. Retrieved 2023-03-15.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.