A Teenage Rape Survivor in El Salvador Has Been Jailed for 30 Years
A judge in El Salvador — where abortion is illegal in all circumstances — has
sent a 19-year-old rape survivor to 30 years in jail because her baby was
stillborn, on the grounds that her failure to get prenatal care amounted to
homicide.
High schooler Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez Cruz, 18 at the time of childbirth,
reportedly gave birth in a bathroom last April after a bout of acute pain in her
stomach and back. She hadn’t realized that she was in the third trimester of a
pregnancy, the Guardian reports.
Hernandez had reportedly been raped repeatedly for months prior in a forced
sexual relationship. She didn’t report the rapes out of fear, but the hospital
that received her did report the stillbirth to authorities, says
Amnesty International.
Medical experts could not determine if the fetal death happened before or
after delivery, according to the Guardian. The judge hearing the case
reportedly accepted prosecutors’ theory that Hernandez didn’t seek prenatal care
because she didn’t want the baby, and further suggested her mother might also be
criminally responsible at sentencing.
“El Salvador’s anti-abortion law is causing nothing but pain and suffering to
countless women and girls and their families,” Amnesty’s Americas director Erika
Guevara-Rosas said in a statement.
The Central American nation has imposed a blanket ban on abortion since 1998.
According to Amnesty, women who experience complications during their
pregnancies — including miscarriages — have been convicted on charges of
aggravated murder, and imprisoned for up to 40 years.
“The total ban on abortion in El Salvador violates women’s rights to life,
health, privacy, due process and freedom from discrimination, violence and
torture and other ill-treatment,” Guevara-Rosas said, calling for the law to be
repealed.
Source: Time
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