Small town in Piauí still shocked at teenagers' rape

A brutal crime shocked the approximately 19,000 population in Castelo do Piauí. The small town is located 190 km from Teresina, the capital of Piauí, one of the poorest states in Northeast Brazil. The incident, which took place in late May, raised new alert against rising violence in smaller towns of the country that until recently were regarded as quiet.

Locals are still horrified at the cruelty with which the five suspects – a 40-year-old man and four local teenagers – treated the victims: C. One of the victims, a 17-year-old girl, died from the injuries. She had her face smashed, and neck and chest injuries. Two of the girls were released from hospital and another is still hospitalized.

“The biggest problem causing violence in the country is drugs,” José Ismar Lima Martins, the local mayor, told Agência Brasil. He said the man and the four teenagers, who have already been booked by police, were on drugs when they found the girls in a remote place overlooking the whole town known as Morro do Garrote, where the girls were taking pictures. According to the mayor, the man, held as the “mastermind”, had served jailed time in São Paulo, whereas the boys were known among local authorities for committing petty theft.

The main economic activities in Castelo do Piauí are smallholder farming and services. Located in the drought-stricken Northeast hinterland, the small town has been a disaster area since 2014. Brazil's 2010 Human Development Atlas (IDHM) maintained by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) ranked Castelo do Piauí 4467th among 5,565 Brazilian cities. The same Atlas reported that only three in every ten young people aged 18 and older had finished elementary school. And yet the result is two times better than it was 15 years before, when only 12% of young people in this age group had completed their education – that was the case with the four teenage boys involved in the crime, who are aged between 15 and 17.

The city has only one police station and three police officers. The local police chief is based in a neighboring town, Campo Maior, from where he takes care of several other local towns.

A town native and a youth services center officer for four years now, Francisco Alberto Cardoso de Sousa maintains that the tragic story in Castelo does not begin with the four teenagers' torment, but with the authorities and society losing the boys to crime and drugs.

“They come from broken families who didn't keep a firm hand on them. They were born to alcoholic parents, took drugs, and had been referred to the youth services center a few times earlier over theft reports and school vandalism. We took all appropriate action. But sadly the public policies are lacking. We're failing to reintegrate young wrongdoers. We don't give them new opportunities. So they become increasingly rejected and end up in complete exclusion. Even the schools would no longer accept them,” the counselor said, referring to the four suspects as “cold-hearted”.

Sousa says he is favorable to proposals to lower the age of criminal responsibility for all offenses, but believes that without other public policies, the measure will only lead to “overcrowded prisons”. “Here in Castelo, for example, things tend to get even worse as we fail to keep these young people focused by having them study and learn a job,” he said.

Two days before it all happened, the youth services center sent two of the four suspects to juvenile detention because of other offenses. Sadly enough, the boys found the girls before the court order was issued.

Translated by Mayra Borges