The Investigating Prosecutor of District 2 shift one, Andrés Godoy, requested the dismissal of a woman, mother and supporter of five minor children, of whom she is the only supporter, and victim of gender violence, for the crime of usurpation, as the cause of justification provided for in art. 34 inc. 2nd of the Penal Code.
In the investigation of the case, the representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office was able to determine that “the accused is in the exclusive care of five children, and even her minor daughter (17 years old, also a mother), was under the same roof, and can presumably be assumed to be financially at his expense.” For Godoy, “this element constitutes an –another- indicator that allows us to maintain that we are facing a case that requires a gender perspective in its approach and in its resolution. Numerous jurisprudential antecedents support the criterion.”
Likewise, the resolution indicates that “attention must be paid to the stereotypes related to the so-called sexual roles, insofar as it is women who mostly assume the responsibility of caring for others, often exclusively […] The naturalization and acceptance of stereotypes to which men and women must conform can legitimize, perpetuate and make invisible illegitimate differentiated treatment. In this way, verifying the personal conditions alleged by the accused, and also valued within the framework of the aforementioned problems, it could be affirmed that we are facing an alleged exculpatory state of necessity in the terms of art. 34, Inc. 2 of the CP”.
The prosecution understood that “the accused was a victim of gender-based violence, to the point that her ex-partner was apprehended for that reason”, It also maintains that “in the case of a person with an incomplete secondary level of education, with five dependent children that imply a great limitation to the schedules to access a job, subsists from welfare benefits.Thus, the stereotypes present in the division of labor by sex can make it difficult for women to access material and social resources, which perpetuates situations dependency and vulnerability.
