The authorities of Medellín, in northwestern Colombia, requested this Monday the deportation of a Dutch man for walking with a woman without clothes while holding her by a chain in a tourist area of the city, a scene that went viral on networks and was highly reproached.
"We are asking Migration to expel the Dutchman who came to damage the image of Medellín and who came to mistreat the women of Medellín," said the mayor of Colombia's second largest city, Daniel Quintero, in a video.
The woman, who was wearing only black lingerie, had a chain tied around her neck that was held by the Dutch citizen while they were walking last Friday in the Provenza neighborhood, a highly visited area in the exclusive sector of El Poblado.
The merchants of the pink zone of Medellín questioned the scene and assured that this type of behavior damages the image of the city and affects tourism, a sector hard hit by the pandemic crisis.
In El Poblado, an area where Parque Lleras, Provenza and Manila are located, the Medellín Mayor's Office will reinforce control activities with the extended presence of a Unified Command Post.
Police reported that the woman was fined for "performing sexual acts or exhibitionism that annoy the community."
The Vice Presidency of Colombia and the Presidential Council for Women's Equality assured this Monday that these events "are serious and warrant forceful action."
In a joint letter, they also warned that these types of scenes "reproduce, incite and justify violence against women by promoting the violation of their rights, the affectation of their dignity and the normalization of demeaning positions or imaginaries that internalize, undervalue and objectify their body".
They also regretted that these images show women "as an object owned by men" and warned that they can promote sex tourism and trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
For this reason, they will ask Migración Colombia to "review the seriousness of the facts" to "take the sanctions and actions it deems appropriate, including contemplating the deportation of the foreign citizen involved in the facts."
In addition, both instances promised to work with local authorities in campaigns to prevent and reject violence against women, and to strengthen the use of reporting channels for this type of case.
Medellín boasts of being the example of transformation, as it went from being one of the most violent cities in the world and the capital of drug trafficking to becoming one of the most developed and leading cities in Latin America.
For this reason, Mayor Quintero assured that the Dutch "does not do the country any good" because that "is not the fame" they want for the city.
"We put Parque Lleras as a main focus of attention because we found many difficulties, we found prostitution, human trafficking, child abuse," Quintero added about the strategy to recover that tourist sector.
He also assured that large investments and a transformation to "resignify the space" are coming to that area of the city, for which the request for expulsion, as he stated, is justified.
