This weekend's episode of Big Brother Brasil featured a disturbing scene: a female contestant apparently being touched by a costar while she slept. Now she thinks she may have been raped, and many are criticizing the show's producers for quite literally standing by and watching it happen.

According to a Change.org petition, the episode in question showed contestant Monique Amin passed out drunk in bed, with male costar Daniel Echaniz moving on top of her (both were under a blanket). Brazilian site Veja offers a similar account, and notes that the footage has already been pulled from the website of TV network Globo, which produces Big Brother Brasil. When Amin confronted Echaniz, he said he had only kissed and hugged her, but Amin and her family aren't convinced — her mom told Ego, another Brazilian site, "It is clear that there was abuse." The Change.org petition reads, in part,

It is inadmissible that Globo Network did not send anyone to check out on the unconscious woman and to see what the man was doing to her. It is inadmissible that Globo Network did not send anyone to break them apart as soon as they realized (because no one here is naive enough to believe the fact went by unnoticed) that the woman could not consent nor participate in the act.


I've contacted a representative from Globo International to see what the network has to say about this — in the meantime, it's sadly not too hard to imagine reality show producers letting a sexual assault play out for the sake of ratings. If that's indeed what happened, then Globo needs to not only turn over their tapes to law enforcement and to Amin, but also seriously examine whether a show that filmed and broadcast assault without intervening deserves to still be on the air.

Globo Network: Take responsability for covering the rape aired in one of their shows [Change.org]

Police open investigation into the rape BBB [Veja, translated via Google Translate]