I would rather like to be writing about other things, but decay has a majestic insistence on making its way along the path towards a better world. Sexual assaults are not just the sexual assault itself, which is bad enough, but all that, that drags on and on like a little thorn in the shoe because institutions don’t do their part. The patriarchy is clearly more than the aggressors, there are also the accomplices, and the institutions that do not solve anything, but only aggravate.
I filed a complaint against Nicolás Espejo Yaksic at UNICEF New York for sexual harassment and abuse of authority, almost four years ago, on June 11, 2020. He who was my boss in the UNICEF office in Santiago de Chile between 2009 and 2013. The first thing to clarify immediately, is that the United Nations has not investigated anything yet. I am still waiting, trusting in the message of António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, everything will be investigated. No. It is not true, nothing, or almost nothing, will be investigated. It is a matter of filing a complaint to find out. As Purna Sen, a former member of the executive board of the United Nations, said, there is a real tension within this organization, which, on the one hand, advocates human rights, and on the other hand, denies the people who work for it the same rights.
Here comes the interesting part. Or the terrible part. Since the institutions do not do their share, the aggressors continue to circulate in total impunity, and sometimes, they count on accomplices, who lend themselves to continue giving them space. That is the case here. We have aggressions that have not been investigated, we have an aggressor, and we have an accomplice. That accomplice is none other than Chile's children's ombudsman. That's right. The ombudsman that a nation dreamed of, to end up in this. When the election was held, there were people who contacted me in alarm to tell me that Anuar Quesille Vera, whom I know well, was running. Not only is he the main henchman of Nicolás Espejo Yaksic, the person I denounced, and under the orders of whom I had to live the worst ordeal I have ever lived through in my life, working for more than four years under the command of a narcissistic stalker. In addition, Anuar Quesille Vera, was, in the past, or I considered him, a great friend. Rather, he pantomimed that he was. We talked almost every day, for years, we worked together, he went to my house and to my parents' house in front of the sea with other friends with whom we shared a weekend, and so on. It seemed strange to me that Nicolás Espejo Yaksic knew things about our weekends, about our private life, things that we talked about among friends, supposedly. One day we realized that it was Anuar Quesille Vera who was sending this information to Nicolás Espejo Yaksic. When I left UNICEF, I never spoke to him again, of course. He sent me an email, I imagine to continue the pantomime, but it was too late, because his total lack of ethical qualities had been exposed with crystal clarity. Perhaps I should have suspected it, I could see how he talked about other people and the private things he told, even about his friends. Let's put it this way, to make it clearer, Anuar Quesille Vera is an extension of Nicolás Espejo Yaksic, as if they were almost one and the same thing. On that day in January 2013, when Nicolás Espejo Yaksic informed me that he had proposed that I be fired, but the office had said no, because they valued my work, I talked to Anuar Quesille Vera, and to my utter stupefaction, he replied, I knew. How to forget. Both had, it seems to me, not only a total absence of ethical qualities, but also an important sadistic component, which is what destroys the most.
I therefore wrote a text entitled El secuaz [The henchman], without mentioning his name. He was the protagonist. I felt the need to warn that Anuar Quesille Vera did not have the ethical qualities to be a children's ombudsman, being also the main henchman of Nicolás Espejo Yaksic, whose lack of ethical qualities is public knowledge. It is enough to ask almost anyone who has worked with him, or who has been intimately related to him (several people approached me after I denounced to talk to me about it, whom I thanked at the time, for the confidence). We are talking about serious traumas, not simple misunderstandings. The text El secuaz [The henchman] ended like this: The absurd sovereign will perhaps be waiting for the henchman to reign to cut his slice, just as he knew how to do when the sovereign reigned.
Mr. Anuar Quesille Vera, whom I esteemed one day, before I knew him well enough, was elected children's ombudsman. Then, it is not difficult to guess. He irregularly hired Mr. Nicolás Espejo Yaksic through an agreement with a university, instead of a public bidding process. A subject that was mentioned in the campaign, the danger of his proximity to such a stalker. I invite you to request by law of transparency the agreement made to get him to work in the institution. Yes, he hired him, although it seems incredible, aspiring then that Nicolás Espejo Yaksic could return to teach at the Universidad Diego Portales, in this context. He told all the people related to this jobs that Mr. Nicolás Espejo Yaksic had been declared innocent by the United Nations. That is, he simply lied. Otherwise, how to hire a denounced harasser, when no investigation has been carried out for the time being. He knows very well what the United Nations said, it did not say in any case that Nicolás Espejo Yaksic is innocent, the only thing the United Nations has said so far, is the following, “After preliminary assessment of your report, and noting that neither you nor Mr. Espejo Yaksic are currently engaged by UNICEF, the Office of Internal Audit and Investigations OIAI, will not conduct a full investigation at this time. This matter may be further considered and investigated, as appropriate, if either you or Mr. Espejo Yaksic seek employment with or are engaged by UNICEF in the future.” If the United Nations does its job and investigates, I have no doubt that he will be found guilty, which I hope they do soon. It is a matter of looking at the definitions that the United Nations has made in relation to these behaviors, and all that has been done by this person against me. Against my body, my mind and my soul. Nicolás Espejo Yaksic destroyed my life and my self-esteem, in a strong way, from which I have recovered, although the sequels remain in the body, every time I am called because he reappears I get a slight tremor and a small tachycardia. Fear is something that takes time to get rid of. I did not become a human rights lawyer for this. He had no right to do what he did. No one has that right.
Nicolás Espejo Yaksic is the total abuser. His specialty is to destroy everyone he is close to. Always with the goal of getting what he wants. Without any consideration whatsoever. As I publicly denounced, people come to me to tell me about their traumatic experiences with this man. I have no problem talking about this. Many people, most perhaps, follow the ordeal more or less in silence. Everyone will be able to relate their experience when they feel like it, and denounce if appropriate.
Anuar Quesille Vera is the absolute accomplice. And now he wants to defend people, particularly children and adolescents. Those who need a lot of protection in terms of the abuse they can suffer. He is an abuser, just like his master. He was elected, maybe because of political favors, because he promised positions here and there. But he does not have enough ethical qualities. A matter I had already warned about. Without enough emphasis, perhaps, but the situation merits it, because against all odds, or maybe not, he hired the person denounced. Even though this may cost him his job. Which to me seems quite impressive, for at least two aspects. The subjection to the executioner, in the first place. The impossibility of Anuar Quesille Vera to confront him. Perhaps because they are the same. On the other hand, and this is not so striking, Nicolás Espejo Yaksic does not care at all that Anuar Quesille Vera may lose his post because of him, because he does not care about anyone but himself. Maybe someone is impressed by this fact. If you look closely, it is still hard to observe. Both cases are of great violence, not being able to get rid of the narcissist who uses you, and the very use of someone.
I write therefore these lines, because perhaps it is necessary to reevaluate if Mr. Anuar Quesille Vera is the most suitable person for that position, together with the removal of a person denounced for sexual aggressions from a children's ombudsman office (it is worth mentioning that besides my complaint there is another one in the Fundación para la Confianza [Foundation for Trust], so far), and under no circumstances, it seems to me, Nicolás Espejo Yaksic can return to teach at the Diego Portales University, where they are aware of the information that I am mentioning. I studied and worked at that university, as did Mr. Nicolás Espejo Yaksic, and Mr. Anuar Quesille Vera. We know that, in this line of probity, the United Nations removed Nicolás Espejo Yaksic as a panelist of a UN Women event given his background, and the Oxford Human Rights Hub removed a podcast in which he participated as an interviewee, for the same reasons, among many other actions that have been carried out in this regard.
I think it is appropriate to say that to this day there are people who tell me about the mistreatment they witnessed by Nicolás Espejo Yaksic towards other people in that institution. As he relates in a way close to bullying, he has an animosity, even of public knowledge, with many people. It works like this. Either you serve me and I can use you, or forget that I'm going to let you continue. It's a matter of talking to any of the people he has fired or proposed to fire. Even when it wasn't his place at all. But because in his delusion he thinks the world is his garden where he can plant and pluck as he pleases, he thinks it's his place. He is wrong all the time. The only thing he achieves is to make the world worse, with people like him in the institutions. When he told me that he had proposed my dismissal, he announced that he had also proposed the dismissal of other people, and he gave me the names of other consultants, from different areas, people who also, perhaps with great naivety, considered him not only a co-worker, but a friend. Not only did he tell me, I proposed to fire this one and this one, but he said, I will not repeat his literal words because they are not worthy of a text of these characteristics, but he said, this person will not be able to find work anywhere again. For a moment I had the feeling that I was talking to someone who perceives himself as belonging to a mafia that is above any existing norm. Immunity to which his henchman also believes he belongs, as we can see. The dictatorship at times seems to live inside each of these people.
The institutions and universities that work in human rights will finally honor their role in the defense and protection of human rights, or not. That is the question that remains. How much more needs to be done for human rights to exist. For the dictatorship to be just a bad memory. If we are hiring abusers, we are not going to achieve the objective, at least the one that has been set. Mr. Nicolás Espejo Yaksic and Mr. Anuar Quesille Vera can lie all they want, but that does not mean that the truth is changed. I was a victim of sexual harassment while working at UNICEF and the United Nations has not investigated anything yet, which they should have done, if we look closely at what the institution holds as inescapable principles and the guidelines it has set.
Someone told me that Nicolás Espejo Yaksic, to get out of his guilt, among other lies, had said that he had been my partner, I think this is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard, in fact if I think about it, it makes me want to vomit. I was never ever her partner or anything like that, fortunately, just her subordinate in more than one job unfortunately. I have never ever had sex with this person, thank god. When this person harassed me, moreover, I was engaged to marry someone, which added terror and stress to the matter. Had I had the words and concepts (and that office, United Nations and the world would have been otherwise, as it is now) and not just a sidereal fear, of losing my fiancé and my job in one fell swoop, I could have named the affair to know I was a victim. Now I know better. The road to understanding and repair is a long one. I paddled with the tools I had at the time, which were far fewer than I have now, clearly. The suffering was very, very intense. Now I see it far away, I am a happy, free person, and I am not subjected to anyone. I live, however, millions of kilometers away from all that, which helps. If I had to meet that person face to face, I think the situation would not be the same. Like what happens to people who have met their torturer. Or people who have to see their rapist.
Perhaps it is appropriate to comment here that some people, not many, for reasons of political party and similar, have not sufficiently condemned, or have not condemned at all, the behavior of Nicolás Espejo Yaksic and his actions, which I describe in my complaint. The fact that people only condemn what is convenient for them, I believe says a lot. Being that the consequences on the victims are the same, from whichever side the aggressor comes from. How will we advance in a matter, if politicians and people who call themselves feminists even sometimes publicly, are not able to condemn when it is appropriate. These differences cannot be made. The condemnation of crimes must always be unrestricted. If you have the version of the abusers, you must also ask the other party, it is always necessary to have both versions, a prosecutor I know, who knows what he is talking about, told me. Here I am, I can give my version whenever it is required, and I believe, and I have no problem in saying it, that my actions are ethical, and that I have not carried out anything trying to achieve something by using people in an instrumental way. Human rights mean very concrete things to me, they exist and must be respected. This is a life motive. My actions have had no other intention than to do justice and fight for a world without abuse. I assume the costs. When I decided to become a human rights lawyer, my convictions were too deep for pettiness or reservations. I would like, nevertheless, not to be a victim of torture, rape or murder, that would be the ideal. The lies that the harasser and his accomplice may tell do not keep me awake at night because I have a clear conscience that I have done the right thing. Being a human rights lawyer carries a weight, of that there is no doubt, and a great responsibility, which I am willing to assume and have always assumed. I believe in institutions and in the values of probity and democracy. I also believe that this can be a world without abuse. We must continue working tirelessly, that is what I have learned from María Soledad Cisternas Reyes, Nelson Caucoto Pereira and Xavier Armendariz Salamero, my masters. Along with all those feminists I follow closely and whom I admire with great passion and lucid reverence. I know that the path has been traced by others before me. Here in Lyon, we have been fighting a great battle against aggressors in the cultural milieu for some time now. It is necessary to fight in all areas because none of them is spared, it is a matter of reading the newspapers to know it. Let the denunciations continue so that the dimension of the phenomenon is more and more exposed, violence that touches, there is no doubt, almost all women in the world, in one way or another. After four years of official feminist activism, working and participating in collectives and groups and directing a trilingual feminist activist and literary journal, I can see much more clearly the urgency of the struggle. Coming out of silence and taking action is what changes things.
HOW LONG ARE WE GOING TO BE SURROUNDED BY IMPUNE AGGRESSORS? Maybe this way it will be more emphatic, and there will be more attention. Who usually, in addition, return to attack. Until when the accomplices and the institutions that do not fulfill their role. Not one step back. No matter what maneuvers the aggressors use to continue harassing and raping, the world is going to change, it is a fact. No more aggressors and no more accomplices. All united against abuse, all united for a much, much, better world. OUT WITH THE ABUSERS OF OUR INSTITUTIONS.
* Andrea Balart is a writer and human rights lawyer. She holds a Master's degree from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Barcelona. Feminist activist, co-founder, director and editor of Simone // Revista / Revue / Journal. French-Chilean-Catalan-Basque, she was born in Santiago de Chile and lives in Lyon, France.
Text El secuaz [The henchman]
Complaint
[esp]
[eng]
[fr]
Communication sent by the UN to Andrea Balart. Paragraph 2 states: “After preliminary assessment of your report, and noting that neither you nor Mr. Espejo Yaksic are currently engaged by UNICEF, the Office of Internal Audit and Investigations OIAI, will not conduct a full investigation at this time. This matter may be further considered and investigated, as appropriate, if either you or Mr. Espejo Yaksic seek employment with or are engaged by UNICEF in the future.”
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Great triumph for women's rights
Women's rights and the contradictions of the United Nations
Variations for successfully reporting abusers
Relatos de bastardos II y otros textos [Tales of bastards II and other texts]
Original photographies © Celeste Laila D'Aleo.
Image postproduction: Andrea Balart.
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