Brazilian model Caroline Werner slammed what she described as “repressive interpretation of the law” after she was arrested earlier this year for public indecency while walking her dogs bare-breasted.
The 37-year-old was stopped by police officers in May for being outside topless while walking across the street from the beach in Balneário Camboriú, a coastal city in the south of Brazil.
“Unfortunately in my country, even though the Constitution ensures gender equality, in practice this does not happen,” Werner told the Brazilian outlet G1.
Image credits: carolwerner1
“I cannot have the same freedom and I feel coerced into doing so by this system and the repressive interpretation of the law.”
“What should be natural for both genders ends up being denied to one of them in an arbitrary and repressive manner.”
According to the model, she was loaded into a van and given a blouse to cover her breasts when she arrived at the police station.
The businesswoman, who owns a bikini line, claims the police officers violated her due process rights by not allowing her to phone her family members or a lawyer.
“When I arrived at the police station, they took me to a dark cell, where I was handcuffed to the cell railing, without the right to communicate with any family member, friend or lawyer,” Werner said.
“I spent more than an hour in that situation, unable to speak to anyone and — even though I had asked for — I was denied my right to speak to my lawyer several times.”
The model said she was denied the right to speak to a lawyer after arriving at the police station
Image credits: carolwerner1
Article 233 of the Penal Code in Brazil describes the charge as “performing an obscene act in a public place, either open or exposed to the public.” However, the law does not define what an “obscene act” is, as per G1.
If found guilty, she could face from three months to a year in prison.
The Santa Catarina state prosecutor’s office in charge of handling the case has offered her a plea deal, but Werner reportedly did not attend the hearing. Her attorney claims she was not notified of it and is requesting a new date.
The model mentioned that she had never experienced a similar situation before, and she never encountered any problems walking topless in other parts of the world.
“In many countries, it is a completely normal practice,” she explained. “A woman’s body is not objectified and hypersexualized.”
"Even though the Constitution ensures gender equality, in practice this does not happen," Caroline denounced
Image credits: carolwerner1
The South American country is known for its extreme heat and brightly colored carnival spectacles, when sightings of barely covered men and women are not infrequent.
Still, Brazil has laws dating back to the 1940s which ban women from publicly exposing their chests.
The country’s obscenity laws have often been met with criticism, attracting protests where bare-breasted women have defied the ban that prevents them from going topless even on the beaches.
“A breast isn't dangerous!” said Olga Salon, a 73-year-old woman from Rio, as she stripped off. “It's a false-Puritanism and indicative of our macho culture that we have a law forbidding a woman to go topless.”
“What should be natural for both genders ends up being denied to one of them in an arbitrary and repressive manner," the businesswoman added
Image credits: No Wan Unoh
The protests are part of a broader “Free the nipple” movement that aims to question the different treatment that men and women face when it comes to removing their tops in public.
In 2016, Heidi Lilley, Kia Sinclair and Ginger Pierro were arrested for removing their tops at a Laconia, New Hampshire beach and refusing to put them on after beachgoers complained. While Pierro was doing yoga, the two other women were sunbathing.
After the arrest, the women maintained that the ordinance was discriminatory on the basis of gender.
However, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that Laconia did not violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution with its ordinance forbidding women from showing their nipples in a public space.
If found guilty, she could face up to a year in prison
Image credits: carolwerner1
The global campaign advocates the idea that if a man’s bare chest isn’t sexualized, a woman’s chest shouldn’t be considered indecent or obscene, and it should be culturally acceptable and legal for both genders to go topless.
“What happened to me, the abuse of authority and judgment by society, demonstrates how the interpretation of the law itself reflects gender conduct dictated by patriarchal, violent culture, in relation to the control of female bodies,” Werner said.
Most people supported Caroline, weighing in on the "Free the Nipple" campaign
