Argentine actress and singer Rocio Igarzabal has revealed she was sexually abused from the age of five by someone who was supposed to be caring for her.
Rocio, best known for the hit Argentine series Casi Angeles, made the disclosure in Argentina on 3rd June during the annual Ni Una Menos, or Not One Less, march against violence towards women.
The 36-year-old shared photos from her childhood on Instagram, where she has nearly a million followers, as she explained why she had decided to speak publicly after years of silence.
Rocio said: “My first sexual experience was at the age of five, by someone who said they were taking care of me.
“A trusted person abused me repeatedly. In this photo, I am five years old.”
She said she had grown up blaming herself for what happened.
Rocio said: “I grew up believing I was to blame. I developed eating disorders, I stayed silent.
“I told it as an adult. Out of shame, out of fear.”
The actress said looking again at the childhood pictures had brought back the scale of what had happened to her.
She said: “Today I see myself in these photos and I feel immense pain, anger, helplessness and a lot, a lot of anguish.”
Rocio’s post quickly went viral, with followers sending messages of support and other survivors sharing their own accounts of abuse.
The actress then moved from her own experience to the wider crisis of violence against women and girls in Argentina.
She referred to the killing of 14-year-old Agostina Vega in Cordoba, a province in central Argentina, and other cases that have driven fresh protests across the country.
Rocio said: “I was able to get out, I was able to ask for help and move forward with scars, but with a great desire to live.
“There are women and girls who did not, who could not get out.
“They cannot want to live, because their lives were stolen from them, ripped away.
“And today we are their voice. We are their absence. We are their cry of fear.
“Hope is in the struggle. Let us never tire of fighting.”
She added in the caption: “For my five-year-old Rochi. For all those who are no longer here. For my mum, my sisters, my daughter, my friends. #niunamenos"
The Ni Una Menos ("Not one [woman] less") movement began in Argentina in 2015 after a wave of anger over femicides and has since grown into one of Latin America’s most prominent campaigns against gender-based violence.
Rocio later said in interviews that she had not taken the case to court because the abuse began when she was a child and the statute of limitations had already passed.
She said she first told her family when she was 21, but chose at the time to focus on her recovery with therapists and medical professionals rather than pursue a legal battle.
Because no criminal charges were filed, the family acquaintance she accused has not been named publicly.
This year’s Ni Una Menos march was held days after Agostina’s killing in Cordoba and the death of 17-year-old Dulce Candia, from Misiones Province in north-eastern Argentina, intensified public anger.
Local media reported that the anniversary march again brought protesters onto the streets under the slogan Ni Una Menos.
The movement has become a rallying cry in Argentina and across Latin America for women and girls killed or abused because of gender-based violence.
Rocio’s disclosure was widely reported by Argentine media, including La Nacion, Infobae and Clarin after she chose to make the account public through her own social media.
(Aloysius Fernandes/Newsflash)
