Does this remind anyone of Natalee Holloway? When you are out of the country, you have NO rights, the laws are usually very different and less strict, and the victim usually never gets justice.
Just remember, you are NEVER automatically safe on vacation.
(Source)--"The last memory that I had was drinking my drink and then all the sudden, it just went black," a Twin Cities mother recalls as she dabbed her eyes with a tissue. We'll call her Mary. Mary says she was drugged and raped while on vacation in Cancun, Mexico.
"I had fingerprints, bruising on my arm, I looked down and I really knew then that I had been assaulted," Mary said. She admits she left her beer unattended at a hotel bar, she believes someone slipped Rohypnol into her drink. Mary tells us she does vaguely remember seeing a man on top of her before blacking out again.
"There is just a period of time and it is usually a couple of hours, where there is absolutely no memory," Emily Huemann said of Rohypnol. Huemann is the program coordinator for Ramsey County Sexual Offense Services.
The U.S. State Department has warnings for travelers on its website, addressing the situation Mary describes. Government officials say drugging drinks is common in resort city nightclubs in Mexico.
Mary says when she woke up, "I felt really helpless, I felt like oh my god, nobody is here to help me." She says she didn't get any help from hotel staff and claims her travel agent told her if she couldn't identify her attacker, police would not help.
"She looked right at me and said, oh honey, Cancun is very dangerous, she said this happens all the time," Mary recalled her travel agent saying. Mary's husband got in touch with the U.S. Embassy. A worker there told her not to go to a hospital in Mexico because there are no rape kits in there. She was told to come home immediately and get medical help. (Meaning go home and forget about it...)
When she got home, she says emotional help was tough to find. There are no sexual assault support groups in Anoka County where she lives. At this point, Mary is on a waiting list for a support group in another county.
Mary started sending out dozens and dozens of emails, and it's made a difference. Anoka County is now working on setting up support groups. "I'm not going to let the shame of this crime stop me from getting the help that I need, and helping other people," she concluded.
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