"I feel free, and strange, because I feel light. I am calm, calm, I feel safe,"
says Juan Pedro Aleart. He is a journalist, he is 36 years old and for two days he has been living in a whirlwind of notes that have him as the protagonist, and on Thursday, when opening his television program "De 12 a 14" on Rosario 3, he told his story,
a endless abuse suffered by an uncle during his childhood and adolescence
. Abuses that his younger brother also suffered. And her sister, but her own father abused her. "A family torn apart," says Juan.
It took him
fifteen years of therapy
to break the mandate of Pedro, his father, who ordered silence:
"What happens at home stays at home
. "
And what was happening was pure violence. "It took me fifteen years because that was the time it took me to trust and be able to talk to my psychologist.
How could I trust someone if I had never been able to trust my father, my uncle or my mother?
" says Juan. , one of the best-known journalists in Rosario.
"I am very mobilized and excited. After telling my story
I received many messages of support, a lot of love.
Also from many men who were abused and never dared to tell it, because although the damage of abuse has no gender distinction,
for It is more difficult to recognize a man because it is more embarrassing
, many are afraid that they will believe that they may be homosexual, and that is not the case," he says.
Juan says that in these two days
he received messages from Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Spain, and the United States
. "Many people were impacted by the story. And what moves me most is the reaction of the people of Rosario.
I feel like all of Rosario embraces me
."
Talk to heal
Juan talks about abuses that began two decades ago, when
he was 7 years old and his uncle Helvio Vila (his father's sister's husband), a biochemist, was almost 40
. Abuses that continued throughout adolescence, and were repeated with his younger brother. Abuses that at the age of 12 he told his parents, who did nothing. And his father, Pedro, a cardiologist, in turn abused his youngest sister since he was 3 years old.
His father committed suicide three weeks ago
, days after Justice notified him of a complaint against him.
Juan's brothers released a statement this Friday questioning their decision to tell the family story on air: "We have been brutally revictimized," they said.
-Did you remember the abuses?
-No, I denied them, I was blocked. I made them conscious in therapy, in 2021. I was 33 years old, and I had started therapy at 18. At that time I started because I had anxiety, low self-esteem, many emotional ups and downs, I was good, bad, changing all the time. I think it took me fifteen years to speak because that was what cost me to trust her, because I had not been able to trust my father or my mother, the people who had to take care of me the most betrayed me.
-How did your parents react when you told them about your uncle's abuse?
-I was 12 years old. I talked to my mom. I told him that my uncle explained sexual education to me and that he taught me how to put on condoms. It was strange, was what I could say at the time. My mom talked to my dad, who didn't say anything. My mother also spoke with her mother and my uncle's wife, who denied everything about her, and blamed her for wanting to distance us from her family. They treated her like crazy. And my uncle continued abusing my brother and me.
-Your father abused your sister...
-There were situations of abuse in front of everyone. My dad said it was a game. My sister screamed, she cried.
-You also blame your mother... was she also a victim?
-Yes, the psychological and emotional abuse was tremendous. She told him that she was stupid, stupid, crazy, he underestimated her. One time my mom fainted in front of me, I thought she was dead. She was always very submissive. My grandparents offered her an apartment so she could move out, but she didn't want to. Maybe I think she should have protected us, fought like a lioness for us, her three children were abused, but she had few tools to help. She never wanted to listen, and she never asked for forgiveness either. I cut ties with her a long time ago. It wasn't until 2020 that she told me that my dad had HIV. She had known it for a long time. And my dad abused my sister.
-What do you think of your brothers' reaction?
-I understand them. The fears they have are what I had. I understand that fear overcomes them, but I think that talking will help them, like many other people who went through the same thing.
The legal battle
-Justice told you that the case expired... What do you think of that decision?
-I filed the complaint against my uncle in 2022. Judge Florentino Malaponte said that it prescribed, but the truth is that judges have legal tools to help victims. For example, there are many rulings that are based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which dates back to 1994, prior to the abuses. I think that the judges who do nothing are crooks, they wash their hands and thus discourage complaints.
-Would you agree with a trial for the truth, which has no condemnation but does have symbolic weight?
-It's not enough for me, that's like a consolation. Someone who abuses a defenseless and innocent minor is a criminal. And the State wants to settle you with a mock trial. It's like throwing an abuser into the mud and leaving him with a stain. My lawyers appealed and my case is in the Provincial Court. I hope that the judges rise to the occasion, and that they do not side with the abusers.
-The National University of Rosario suspended your uncle after you told the story.
-Yes, but they already knew everything. My complaint, where my brother also testified, is from 2022. And there is another complaint for abuse of a student, in which another student also testifies. That is, four of us had already said that she was an abuser and the university had done nothing. They even gave him lawyers from the university to defend him.
On the side of good or evil
-You repeated several times about good and evil...
-It is a fight between good and evil, love and hate. Good must win. What side are you on? That of defenseless abused children or that of adults who do not control themselves? There are judges who are on that side. And I wonder how they go back home and look at their families without thinking about the victims. With what eyes do you look at your children. The same with the lawyers who defend them. How do they look their children in the face? Abuse is violence. Manipulation is violence.
-Is reporting healing?
-In each stage I felt that I was healing little by little. When I made it conscious I was no longer the same, neither when I accepted it, and later when I denounced it, and that's how I moved forward. The relief I feel now is impressive.
-How do you feel about your father's suicide?
-When he received the notification from Justice, he put messages on social networks and sent private messages to my brothers and me, he wanted to blame us because we had betrayed him, he said. It was all very distressing. I found out that he killed himself when he had just arrived in Amsterdam on a trip. It was very shocking, and very sad, because he was my father too. But I knew he was dead in life. I got to tell him everything as an adult, I got the urge to be able to tell him everything, and he listened to me and he was already dead.
-Would you like to be a father?
-I always wanted to be a father, but I was very afraid, I felt that I couldn't bring children into the world having all this inside me, if I could barely take care of myself how was I going to take care of them. But now I'm thinking that I can bring children into the world, I'm more confident. I know it is a wish, and so is my girlfriend Yoana's.