The alleged rape committed during a Brazilian reality show

The Brazilian and Italian newspapers have been talking for days about the alleged harassment and an alleged rape that took place during the reality show the Fazenda , a kind of Big Brother broadcast by the second most important network in Brazil, Record Tv. The people involved are Dayane Mello, Brazilian model also known in Italy, and the singer Nego do Borel. He was expelled from the program and is currently being investigated by the Sao Paulo police for the sexual abuse he is suspected of. She is still inside the estate where the broadcast takes place, without the possibility of having contact with the outside: she is not aware of the investigation, says she does not remember and, above all, has not been informed of what she could

Meanwhile
A Fazenda is a reality show broadcast in Brazil on Record Tv since 2009 and is produced by Sony Pictures Television, among others. It is based on a Swedish format and has reached its thirteenth edition. The participants of the reality show are famous people, equally divided between men and women, and share their daily life on a farm in Itapecerica da Serra, in the State of Sao Paulo, watched 24 hours a day by the cameras.

Dayane Mello is a model, she is 32 years, she was born in Brazil, and in 2014 she moved to Italy where she is well known for her participation in various television and reality shows and for some of her romantic relationships. Nego do Borel, who is actually called Leno Maycon Viana Gomes, is 29 years old, was born in Rio de Janeiro and is a very famous singer in his country.

What happened
Tuesday 5 October, during the Italian broadcast Le Iene , a service which reconstructs the story of what happened to Dayane Mello and which shows the images, or part of the images, shot inside the fazenda and that have been removed from the Record Tv website. In the videos, Borel seems to have acted against the will of Mello, who was drunk: through the audio it is possible to hear the woman asking the singer not to do what she was doing.

The story began in the night between 18 and 19 September, when a party was organized inside the estate where the reality show takes place. The contestants had consumed alcohol and at the time of going to sleep in a large common room Nego do Borel had explicitly attempted a sexual approach with Dayane Mello: in the images you can see the two in one bed, you can see her who pushes him away with his hand several times and then again he who insists touching, at a certain point, her breasts.

A few days later, between 24 and on 25 September, a new party was organized at the end of which Dayane Mello was clearly very drunk: in the video she is seen staggering, falling to the ground and almost unconscious, lying in bed, being helped by other competitors to put on her pajamas. The images then show Mello and Nego do Borel in the same bed and some competitors intervening to remove him having probably guessed his intentions and being aware of her conditions.

At that point, Nego do Borel, turning to Dayane Mello, says: “Just answer yes or no. Yup? OK then”. Then, turning to the others in the room, he says, “He signed the release.” The lights go out, the cameras leave the frame of the bed where the two are and only the audio is heard. In the service of the Hyenas a sentence is remarked, in particular, pronounced by Mello: «I deny, I have a daughter, I can’t. Did you understand? I can not”. The next morning the videos show Nego do Borel retrieving a condom wrapper from under the bed.

Also the next morning, an author of the program had a interview with Mello, asking her in a generic way if she remembered what happened the previous night. She replies yes, but to more precise questions about some phrases she had uttered, she replies that she does not remember those same phrases. He also explicitly says that he did not have sex with Nego do Borel and that between the two of them “nothing happened”.

At this point in the story , a “campaign” has started on social networks to ask for the expulsion of the singer, accompanied by various hashtags and phrases such as “No es no”, “Violación no” and “Violación en la Record”. The broadcaster was then heavily criticized not only for not intervening to interrupt what was happening to a person at that time visibly unable to give his consent – regardless of whether a crime was or had not been committed – but also for not informing the woman.

Consequences
On 25 September, Nego do Borel was expelled from the program and without the other competitors, so local newspapers write, some explanation was provided. Mello’s lawyers filed a complaint with the police accompanied by the images recorded during the reality show and the police launched an investigation, still ongoing, against Nego do Borel for alleged rape of a vulnerable person, that is, unable to understand and to want at the moment of the facts.

In the meantime, the singer has published a video in which he defends himself from the accusations and gives his version of the facts: he says having slept next to a drunk person and talks about a consensual relationship; and as a consequence of the hatred that he claims is unjustified that he is receiving on social networks, he threatens to kill himself.

On Monday 4 October Borel’s mother reported his disappearance, but after about 25 hours the man was found in a motel near Rio de Janeiro. The press office of the singer, in a note, also wrote: “We are in favor of justice being done, but we ask to avoid trials without evidence or based on small clippings from the internet.” Before joining the reality show, Nego do Borel had already been accused of assaulting an ex-girlfriend and indicted for personal injury against another woman he had an affair with.

In Brazil, the correspondent of the Iene tried to ask for a meeting with the production of the program, to try to talk to Nego do Borel and to have contacts with Mello inside the fazenda, without success. He met her lawyer anyway. Vanessa Tomaz. Tomaz explained that the production of the reality show did not allow her to contact Mello without consequently being expelled from the program, which would entail the payment of a very heavy penalty. He then explained that the woman has no perception of what happened and also explains how the broadcaster that broadcasts the program is very “macho” and “patriarchal”, reflecting the mentality of its owner.

Record Tv belongs to Edir Macedo, a personal friend of President Jair Bolsonaro, far right: he is a Brazilian preacher and entrepreneur, founder and leader of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, which ended up in the center of several investigations for fraud and money laundering.

Macedo publicly supports homophobic positions (for example, he invites homosexual people to put their hands on the television during his rites to free themselves from the devil ) and sexist: it says that women must submit to men. It is not clear how much these positions of his have to do with the story of Nego do Borel and Dayane Mello, but her lawyer wonders why the singer was allowed to participate in the reality show given the ongoing investigations and the indictment of his charge for gender-based violence.

Tomaz also criticized the ways in which the program, after the start of the media case, spoke and represented what happened: “They had no respect for the victim, they faced everything with lightness. This can discourage women who have experienced similar cases to report ”. In a note, Mello’s legal group then wrote: «Despite the expulsion of the participant who endangered Dayane’s physical integrity, the edition chose to consider her guilty of the abuses suffered. According to the program, the summary of the victim’s night is that she was running after the man who raped her. ‘ Finally, it is said that the reality show showed a “distorted narrative of the facts”, and that the public were offered clips of videos that did not include “the many times” that the woman said no or said “that she could not and did not want. “

For years, in Brazil, feminist movements protest against the deep-rooted sexism of the country, denounced among other things by Carmen Lucia, president of the Supreme Federal Court, who spoke of a “culture pervasive male chauvinist ». According to the country’s official public safety documents, in 2019 in Brazil there were
1326 femicides, domestic violence increased by 5.2 percent over the previous year, there were 66,123 rapes, one every eight minutes, and 57.9 percent of rape victims had less of 13 years.

Second the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) these are underestimated numbers: in Brazil only 10 percent of sexual violence is reported to the police. The institute says more than 500,000 people are raped every year: most of them are women and 70 percent of these are girls and teenagers. According to a survey also conducted by IPEA a few years ago, 26 percent of respondents think that women who wear clothes that leave some parts of the body uncovered deserve to be attacked. 65.1 percent also believe that a woman who is attacked by her partner, and that despite this does not leave him, “loves” to be beaten.