Blinded, sexually assaulted, silenced: the war over lithium, Argentina’s ‘white gold’

A man carries the Wiphala flag – which represents the native peoples of the Andes – at the protest camp in Purmamarca, Jujuy province. The demonstrators, many of them from the Indigenous community, are angry about changes made to the state constitution, and the growth of mining. Photograph: John Owens

The first time, they came at 2am and without a warrant. Rosa* was alone. She was gagged, her eyes covered, and her hands bound with a cable tie.

“I was paralysed. I felt someone choking me,” Rosa recalls. “They called me a socialist, a whore. I was in my underwear; they touched me. One put his fingers inside of me.”