According to the Attorney General’s Office, police in the municipality of Cocorná, Antioquia, have arrested a herbalist accused of molesting a 33-year-old woman and one of her minor daughters, a 16-year-old teenager.
The 49-year-old subject, identified as José Leonel Henao Ríos, would have taken advantage of the alleged healing rites that he offered his victims to commit sexual abuse.
The mother and daughter went to the herbalist between 2021 and 2023 when they “said some prayers to relieve the menstrual problems” they were suffering, the attorney general’s office said. During the sessions, the herbalist “touched the 33-year-old woman several times and once sexually assaulted the minor victim,” the prosecutor added.
The person was accused of the crimes of abusive sexual access with inability to resist and sexual acts with inability to resist, both in aggravated behavior and in homogeneous and successive competition, allegations that he did not accept.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, between 2020 and 2023, eleven suspected witches or herbalists were prosecuted for alleged sexual abuse, particularly of women, during alleged healing rituals. Six of these cases would have occurred this year.
So far in 2023, the Antioquia Attorney General’s Office has made 289 arrests for sex crimes.
Hotlines for reporting sexual or domestic violence in Colombia
- National line: 155
- State police: 123
- Telephone number of the Attorney General’s Office: 122
- Colombian Institute for Family Welfare: 018000 918080
- Protection telephone for boys, girls and young people: 141
- WhatsApp: 320 239 1685 – 320 865 5450 – 320 239 1320
- Purple Line in Bogotá 018000 112137, WhatsApp 3007551846 or email lpurpura@sdmujer.gov.co
- Line 123 Metropolitan in Antioquia
