Thelma Fardín is sitting on the end of a double bed, wearing her loose curls and a striped t-shirt. Look at camera. She says that during the tour of the series “Patito Feo” she was raped by the only adult actor on the team, Juan Darthés. “She was 16 years old, she was a girl,” she says and cries. The tears go away and she assures: “Thanks to someone speaking, I can speak today”. It is 2018, the video that lasts 2 minutes and 34 seconds is repeated on all channels, and is shared on social networks with the hashtag #LookHowWeWear. A 19-year-old girl, in a town in northern Neuquén, sees him and writes on Facebook: “I was so afraid and I was so innocent that I didn’t understand anything (…) today I am becoming stronger and I am no longer silent.”
From the age of eight to ten, Luna was abused by her sister’s father. The person who was supposed to take care of her. «I grew up thinking that he was my dad because My mother got married with him when I was two years old, so I was very little.and I grew up seeing him as a father figure,” he said.
She was never able to tell her mother what he did to her, because he threatened to hurt her. «At that moment it was like I didn’t understand, I always wondered and I asked him why he did that to me, and why not to my sister. And always “He told me that because I was not his daughter,” he added.
He was violent with his mother in front of them. The couple separated, but Luna remained silent. «For me it is fear, it is shame, the fact that they are not going to believe you. “I suffered a lot of bullying because my body developed very quickly, and I did not have the same body as my classmates,” she said.
Luna was not the only one who felt that impulse that December 11, when Actrices Argentinas held a press conference and published the video. That same night calls to Line 144 increased by 123%.
«There were a lot of mixed feelings because it was listening to her speak, which also It had happened to him many years ago, and it made me think about telling it. Maybe something could be done, or at least take some of the weight off my shoulders.”, he recalled. She was alone. She posted it, first on WhatsApp and then on Facebook.
Everyone found out, including her mother and her boyfriend. She distanced herself from his sister. She reported and traveled to Chos Malal every time she was summoned. At trial he was sentenced to eight years in prison. The sentence mentions that Thelma’s testimony was “the trigger.” The storm that precedes the landslide.
«I had little psychological support at that time. It was quite complicated, I had a pretty bad time. I had to go many times to testify, It was repeating the same thing many times. I felt relief, on the one hand, because the truth is that I had no hope that it was going to turn out well, for all the years that had passed.he emphasized.
A baby’s screams can be heard over the phone. Today Luna is a mother. «I am happy with my son, I am happy with the family I formed. That’s where anguish grabs me, I have my days of anguish, and of memories and that, but hey, I have to try to be strong. That’s why I feel that a lot of what happens to me affects him,” she said.
Last June 10, when the young woman learned that Darthes had been convicted, she felt satisfaction. «I was the same as her, because he (her attacker) was free until the sentence came out. He went about his normal life, as if nothing had happened. These guys call us liars and that is something painful. I don’t know, I celebrated it together with her because it was something nice too. Although no matter how many years it takes, it is something that you never forget about your life, it is something that marks you forever.«he stressed.
If anyone reads this and suffered sexual abuse, Luna recommends that they be removed. «If you have to take time, take it, but don’t keep it to yourself, because that affects your daily life even more, because you are not alone and there will always be someone, other women, who We are going to accompany them. There, justice does not play much in their favor, but the support of other women always helps a lot to move forward,” she said.
What would you say to Thelma? Luna was excited: «at some distant time, perhaps, I would like to meet her. Thanks to her, at that moment I was able to say it, that she is also very strong and very brave.
light a spark
The echo of a story resonates with each person and can generate changes.
That happened with the song “There are secrets” by Canticuénticos that helped a girl reveal sexual abuse. She had heard it at school, thanks to a music teacher. The aggressor was a neighbor who was convicted in 2021, in Zapala. At the end of reading the verdict, Judge Carolina González brought the topic to the hearing.
In the same city In 2020, a girl followed the trial for the femicide of Cielo López, and that motivated her to tell about the sexual violence that her cousin carried out against her and her sister. The prosecutor said that the girl felt identified because when “they abused her she felt like they killed her,” like Cielo.
