A young woman who ordered an Uber to get home from a party in La Molina district of Lima early Sunday said her driver raped her in a post published on her Facebook account.
María Claudia Pecho Cobeña published the claim with a video on Monday, writing that a 27-year-old Uber driver named Gianfranco Huaichao Ronto sexually assaulted her the day before.
“I never thought this could happen to me, but yesterday I was raped,” Pecho says in the attached video. “Help me share his photo, help me share my case so that it serves as a protest and prevention.”
Pecho has told Spanish-language outlets in the country that she was coming home from a party and left at 1:20 a.m. The application reported that she arrived at her destination at 1:44 a.m. According to the official claim, Pecho said she was sexually assaulted near her house in Surco before Huaichao left her where she lives.
“What happened to me yesterday is something that occurs every day in our country,” Pecho wrote in Spanish. “Women are raped and sexually abused. It’s really disgusting that nothing is done about it. It’s really disgusting that businesses supposedly offer “safety” to people, but they do it just for marketing, not in a way that makes promises or is serious. We can’t allow that this keeps happening like it was normal, we can’t let that my case and all cases that are denounced every day only become part of a statistic. Justice for me and for all victims! We will denounce (injustice) without shame!”
According to a report from Peru’s El Comercio news site, Huaichao has been detained by Peruvian police.
“The suspect was arrested Sunday afternoon in a car wash,” police told the news site. “Apparently he was trying to eliminate evidence or fingerprints that could have been left in the car’s interior.”
Huaichao has denied all accusations in his official statement to police, saying that Pecho fell asleep in his car and he woke her up when they arrived at her front door.
An Uber spokesperson in Peru told El Comercio that the driver’s account has been deactivated and the company is cooperating with authorities to offer them any necessary information.
