ECUADOR – After surviving a harrowing rape attempt, Any Hurtado took
up boxing — and found herself surrounded by other Ecuadoran women using
their fists for protection in a country torn by sexual violence.
Statistics paint a disturbing picture of the threats women face in
the South American country: six out of every 10 have been the victims of
gender-based aggression, and one girl in 10 suffers sexual abuse before
the age of 18.
- Hurtado, a 17-year-old nursing student, lived through her own horror story last year.
- She was walking home when a group of men surrounded her and tried to rape her.
- “They started grabbing me and trying to assault me,” she told AFP.
- “As I was struggling against them I thought I wasn’t going to be able to get away. But I found the strength somewhere. I hit the one closest to me and managed to run away.”
- After the incident, Hurtado, who lives alone since her father emigrated to Spain four years ago, went to a gym in La Tola, a neighborhood in central Quito, and began learning to box.
There, she found a cohort of other women with stories similar to her
own donning gloves and learning to use their fists to defend themselves.
One of them is Tania Lara, a 27-year-old domestic worker whose ex-husband used to beat her.
“Sometimes I wish I could go back in time. I think about what it
would have been like then if I were the way I am now, a boxer. I’d have
hit him hard,” she said.
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