The Ecuadorian State is held responsible for the femicide of María Belén Bernal | News

Elizabeth Otavalo, mother of lawyer María Belén Bernal, asserted this Friday that the Ecuadorian State is also responsible for the femicide of her daughter, which occurred on September 11, 2022.

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In the program En Clave Política, broadcast by teleSUR, Otavalo expressed that “they ran into a mother who doesn't just know how to cry, but who knows how to demand the rights that the State has to give us. My daughter was killed inside a police institution in Ecuador and for that the State is responsible”.

By cataloging the government as indolent and emphasizing that her daughter was murdered at the Higher Police School in Quito, Otavalo questioned where the institutions that provide accompaniment to the femicide of her daughter are.

He denounced and questioned the role played by the Ecuadorian police and the former Minister of the Interior Patricio Carrillo, and declared that "from day one the Ecuadorian police covered every step that Germán Cáceres took."

Elizabeth Otavalo also said that the State must carry out a transparent investigation, since there are only two involved according to the investigations: the femicide Germán Cáceres and a lieutenant who was in the next room, for which she wondered "where are the others."

Specifically regarding the complaint by Germán Cáceres regarding the disappearance of María Belén Bernal, who was also his partner, Otavalo argued that the police covered every step he took.

“He did not want to file the complaint. I make it rain. And a second lieutenant was the one who took the complaint, when a military rank considered lower than that held by Cáceres should not do this procedure. The State does not give guarantees of informing you what you have to do when a daughter disappears”, stated the mother of María Belén.

Regarding the involvement of former Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo, Elizabeth Otavalo said that he has full responsibility because he was the leader of a Ministry, "the one who gives the orders."

In this sense, he said that President Guillermo Lasso is the one in charge, the one who controls and administers the State and Carrillo is the head of the police and the school where they train to "take care."

"The femicide of María Belén, her case becomes a letter under her arm to hide the corruption that exists in our country," said Otavalo, who questioned that the police did not have a search plan to find her daughter when was missing.

On the other hand, Otavalo said that there was procedural fraud, concealment, lies, "they tried to cover what cannot be done, make up processes," he said in relation to the actions of the police, the Ministry and Patricio Carrillo.

Likewise, he valued the role of the sit-ins, lawyers, social, human rights and women's organizations to seek these "steps of truth and justice." “Here I am to shout 'Not one Less', 'we love each other alive'”, reaffirmed the mother of María Belén.

In the same way, he recognized the psychological and physical violence that Germán Cáceres exerted on his daughter, as well as that it will be the first time that it is recognized that it is a femicide. “So they don't keep killing us,” she said.

"We raise our voices so that they do not continue killing us, that there is no accompaniment, that we need public policies, that we must continue shouting because the Government does not defend our rights," she argued in response to the challenges of Ecuadorian society in relation to women and patriarchy. .