When Erika Venadero was 15 years old, she attended a retreat that she thought would bring her closer to God. But instead she found herself held captive, deprived of food, and then raped by men who told her she should be thankful because now she was “a real woman”.

I met Venadero, now 26, in Mexico City last month. She said that when she first started to feel romantically attracted to women, at 15, she was confused and had many questions. Homophobia is widespread in her community and she went to a religious family friend for guidance. He signed her up for what she thought would be a spiritual retreat.

She described leaving on a Friday night from the city centre of Guadalajara, her hometown. A van drove her and 14 other teenagers four hours away. Venadero was the only girl, and one of only two LGBTIQ people in the group dominated by young men with experience of drug or alcohol abuse and, in some cases, suicide attempts.

“I was there because I had many doubts, I wanted to know what in me wasn’t working”, she told me. None of them knew where they were when the bus stopped at their destination. Venadero can only recall that it was a wooded highland area that seemed far from any town. She remained convinced that she was at a spiritual retreat like any other.

Soon she realised otherwise. Upon arrival at the site, the teenagers were separated into three groups, stripped of their belongings and sent to bed. Before they took her phone away Venadero noticed it didn’t have signal.

Then it got worse: they were not allowed to shower, change their clothes or be alone – and weren’t given any food for the entire three-day retreat.

Venadero says they believed “that because I was a lesbian, I wasn’t a real woman”. She and the other LGBTIQ teen were separated from the group and ‘counselors’ made them list their ‘sinful’ actions and feelings.

They only joined the other teenagers for certain activities, including to kneel and shout that gay people are disgusting, sinful and deserve eternity in hell. The counselors yelled at them, blaming their parents for their sexuality. Young, fragile and food deprived, Venadero says their words had a profound impact on her. She remembers that she also started blaming herself and her parents for being gay.

Then, after the retreat, returning to Guadalajara, she was physically attacked. “I was the last to be dropped off and they parked close to my house”, she told me. Then the drivers blocked her from exiting the bus, she said, “and they started to touch me without asking for permission and, in turns, abused me sexually”. Venadero said they “justified themselves” by saying “Thank God that now you are a woman” and that it was “as if they were talking about an initiation ritual”.