Friday, January 27, 2023 | 12:15 p.m.
The Neuquén court investigates a complaint of repeated sexual abuse at the plant that the company Tenaris of the Techint Group has in the town of Senillosa.
Although the accusation was made a month and a half ago, the case had a great impact in recent days after the Chief Prosecutor of Neuquén, Maximiliano Breide Obeid, revealed that the practice was “common” among the operators of that plant.
“They naturalized them as a ritual within the company,” Obeidal specified when revealing the confession of other employees who claimed to have suffered the same abuse.
“They took it as a ceremony of a penitentiary unit, unfortunately one is used to seeing these practices in penitentiary units and seeing it in a private company is shocking,” he said.
How were the cases of abuse
The prosecutor explained that the episodes of abuse reported by the victim occurred on two occasions, one of them the day he entered the company in the locker room where there was “struggling and touching” under the excuse that “it was his birthday celebration.” ; and in the second episode in a van “they assault him with sexual connotations.”
The operator reported the situation to the company’s executives, who “initiated an investigation and accompanied him to make the complaint,” said Breide Obeid.
He also stressed that the company “gathered testimonies, presented the images from the security cameras and informed who were the people who participated in the events.”
Likewise, he pointed out that “what emerged from this investigation is that it was not an isolated event, but that this was a rite that had been carried out, a rite of initiation for employment.”
Statement from the Tenaris company
Tenaris issued a statement in which it reported that “after becoming aware of serious situations of harassment suffered by a company worker that occurred at the facilities in the town of Senillosa (Neuquén province), an internal investigation was carried out and, As a result of the survey, disciplinary measures were taken on a total of 11 employees.”
“It should be noted that the company has a ‘Transparent Line’ so that its employees can report safely and confidentially when actions and deviations from the Code of Conduct are identified. It is enabled 24/7, 365 days a year and is available to employees, suppliers, contractors, customers, among other interested parties,” the text adds.
