By Ila Ananya
In another unbelievably horrifying case of men finding success and acclaim after murdering women, Bruno Fernandes de Souza, was signed up with Boa Esporte, a second-division club. Apparently it doesn’t matter that he was convicted for conspiring with his friends, torturing his girlfriend, strangling her and feeding her to his dogs in 2010.
All this came after Bruno served less than one third of his 22-year sentence. He had killed his girlfriend after she sued the footballer for child support in a high-profile case. Of course the club that signed him only said that the footballer had been punished, and that the club was helping him readjust in civil society by “offering him the dignity of work.” What about the fact that Bruno still had two-thirds of his sentence to complete? Seems like that was unimportant. There has been some backlash to his appointment, and three sponsors have pulled out, but none of this has made a difference.
We’re reminded here of how depressing the Oscar Pistorius trial got, when he was sentenced to just six years of imprisonment for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013 — and he would not even have to serve the whole sentence. Back then we’d heard that the judge had called Pistorius a “fallen hero” and talked about how he had “lost his career”. We’re also reminded of the Brock Turner case, where the Stanford student and swimmer was sentenced to six months after he raped a woman. Why? Because the judge thought a long sentence would severely impact Turner. Also, on another note, let’s not forget how Casey Affleck, accused of sexual harassment by two women, won an Oscar.
In each of these cases it seems disturbingly easy for everybody to forget the fact that a woman has lost her life, or was sexually assaulted, just so that the accused man can have a career. We know we write about these cases again and again. And we wish we didn’t have to, but how is it that everyone is always so concerned and kind to criminal men?