WARNING: Sensitive content; Trigger Warning

Imagine walking into a courtroom, the judges were women, you expected them to understand your situation, then the case gets dismissed and your attackers to roam the streets free from charge. The three female judges of the Ancona appeals court decided against the ruling, claiming that the victim’s report “was not credible,” despite what doctors proved to be true. Her injuries were confirmed by medical professionals as consistent with those from rape. Yet, the three female judges decided to agree that the two attackers were not guilty of r*pe because of the victim looking “too masculine” for men to want to sexually her.

Cinzia Molinaro, the lawyer of the victim, says the judges overturned the ruling with 22-page reasoning, claiming that the things said against the men couldn’t be possible because the men “didn’t find her attractive, she was too masculine.” The judges also stated that one of the men entered the victim’s phone number into his phone with the contact name “Viking.” They also brought up the fact that the woman was the one who planned the evening with the two men. The day after the sexual assault happened, the victim went to the hospital, where she was administered 14 stitches and traces of the common “date rape” drug was found in her blood, which caused her recollection of the events that happened to be blurred and forgotten during questioning with the police.

The victim was sent back to Peru to live with her mother for “her protection,” and originally one attacker was sentenced to five years for the sexual assault, and the other three for standing guard. The ruling was then overturned in 2017, but once the results reached the public, the Italian Supreme Court annulled the verdict and ordered a retrial. The case will be reheard in Perugia, about 80 miles away from Ancona.