Bolivian V.P. denounces gang rape of teen

Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera used the word “cavemen” Friday to describe five young men accused of the gang rape of an 18-year-woman who remains hospitalized in intensive care.

“I’m horrified by what happened in Santa Cruz,” he told reporters, referring to the eastern Bolivian city where the alleged crime took place.

Garcia Linera said that despite having laws to combat gender violence and child abuse, Bolivian society remains “very violent” in terms of relations within the family.

He noted that the defendants in this case, who include a minor, were ostensible friends of the victim and deplored public statements by the alleged assailants’ relatives who blamed the woman.

The vice president described the defendants in Santa Cruz as “supposedly modern” youths from affluent families who behaved as “cavemen.”

The victim was admitted to a hospital in critical condition, her attorney said.

A judge denied bail to the four adult defendants.

As she left the bail hearing, the mother of one of the accused dismissed the victim as an “old drug addict” and said that “nobody forced her to go” to the motel where the events took place.