“It happened again. When we woke up, we felt hands that were gone. The old people said it was ghosts or Satan, or that we lied for attention or even that it was an act of wild female imagination. It went on for years. It happened to us to all”. This is how ‘Ellas hablan’ begins, the Oscar-winning film for Best Adapted Screenplay that narrates the cruel rape of a group of Mennonite women from 2005 to 2009 by members of their community. There were 151 victims in total, women and girls who alone had to face this ordeal.

In 2011, courts found nine men guilty after systematically raping women from their Mennonite community, including girls, adult women, and elderly women. “They woke up half unconscious, with a headache and semen stains on their bodies. They had no idea why they were not wearing underwear,” said Fredy Pérez, the prosecutor handling the case, according to the BBC. Seven of the culprits were sentenced to 25 years and one got twelve for drugging the victims. Two others were also tried for related trials and now eight of them are still incarcerated in the Santa Cruz prison.

When reality is stranger than fiction

Sarah Polley, the director of the film, did not mark the date or place of the events during the film, but its beginning makes a reference that allows to locate the events. “What follows is an act of female imagination”: This is the phrase that can be seen at the beginning of the film. The same one that the Mennonite chiefs of the villages used to explain the abuse to which they subjected these women for yearsaccording to the newspaper ‘The Guardian’.

The feature film, which adapts Miriam Toews’ novel of the same name, starkly shows the uncertainty these women faced when they woke up half-drugged after being raped. With their dialogues, the confusion to which they were subjected is revealed, to the systematic lie and heads of the community; and the doubt about what they could do to combat these facts.

For four years these women suffered with the same procedure. The rapists sprayed the sedative through the bedroom windows, knocking them unconscious, and then abused them.. In the morning they did not remember what had happened, they woke up half-naked and many with traces of semen on their bodies. Before long they became suspicious.

The numerous reports of sexual assaults in that small and traditionally peaceful town cast uncertainty on the Bolivian authorities. The case was clarified when a young man was surprised by the authorities inside a family’s house and later arrested red-handed.. In a short time he confessed the truth about the attacks and implicated up to eight other members of his community as guilty of the events.

According to Pérez, this moment was very difficult since the victims did not dare to speak. “It was difficult for the victims to dare to testify,” he explained. “Many of them said that they did not want to speak and immediately began to cry. We explained to them that if they did not cooperate we would not have any witnesses and that the defendants would be acquitted,” she added, according to the same British chain.

During the trial many of the victims did not speak and even did not attend the trial. “Some victims hid for cultural reasons and their parents did not allow them to undergo forensic examinations,” Pérez explained. For women in this community, having sex before marriage is prohibited and greatly reduces the possibility of getting married, according to the BBC. For this reason, some parents decided to shut up and act as if nothing had happened.