The prosecutor said the young mother had killed her baby after giving birth. Photo: Anthony Wallace / AFP
The Salvadoran Lesly Ramirez was sentenced to 50 years in prison for aggravated murder after childbirth in the latrine for obstetric emergency. Prosecutors said the young mother had killed her baby after giving birth, while her defenders claimed it she had suffered a miscarriage.
The sentence against Lesly Ramírez, adopted on June 29, was based “on mere fact gender discrimination“, denounced in a press release the Citizen Group for the Decriminalization of Therapeutic, Ethical and Eugenic Abortion (Acdatee), which will appeal the sentence to ask for his release.
Acdatee explained that one of the arguments the court told Ramírez was: “Mothers are the source of protection for children in all circumstances of life and you weren’t“.
Protesters against abortion march in San Salvador. Photo: Retuers / file
This young woman integrates a large family living in poverty dedicated to agriculture, with a house without water or electricity. In June 2020, after going to the bathroom in a latrine in her home, she unknowingly went into rapid labor, expelling the unborn child. According to the prosecutor at the time, she was a girl between 37 and 40 weeks gestation that presumably was born alive and died a few hours later.
“I felt something come out of me, it was dark and I couldn’t see what I was expelling,” Ramírez said at the time. She panicked and after the emergency she was hospitalized and received three blood transfusions. She then she was arrested.
“First time in history”
In El Salvador, prosecutors and judges classify obstetric emergencies and cases of miscarriage as “aggravated homicide”, with penalties up to 50 years. This, despite the fact that the Salvadoran penal code since 1998 has established penalties of up to eight years for abortion, a practice prohibited in all cases in the Central American country.
“For the first time in history since absolute criminalization of abortionmore than 20 years ago, imposed the maximum penalty for the crime of aggravated homicide, or a 50-year sentence against him, “Edward Pérez, senior legal consultant at the Latin American offices of the Center for Reproductive Rights, explains to RFI.
A Salvadoran appears before the judge after losing her pregnancy due to the rape of her stepfather. Photo: Marvin Recinos / AFP
“And unfortunately we are facing a very serious violation of human rights and that also reflects the pattern of arbitrary detentions against women in obstetric emergency situations in El Salvador “.
Since 2009, 65 women sentenced for health emergencies during pregnancy, most of them in precarious economic conditions, they were released supported by Acdatee and other groups.
But according to Edward Pérez, what “at first seemed a gesture of progress towards the recognition of women’s reproductive freedoms” does nothing but “revalidate the unfortunate context of criminalization against him”.
Last year, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found the state of El Salvador responsible for the case of Manuela, a Salvadoran woman who died in 2010 in prison, serving a 30-year sentence for an out-of-hospital birth classified as aggravated homicide.
The case of Evelyn Hernandez
In August 2019, Salvadoran women saw a light of hope in defense of their rights after a judge was sentenced. support a young woman what had been rape victim and later accused of aggravated homicide after losing the baby in an out-of-hospital birth.
This was the case of Evelyn Beatriz Hernández, 21 years old. In 2017, Evelyn was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Evelyn Hernández celebrates her freedom in 2019. Photo: Oscar Rivera / AFP
Hernández’s case dates back to 6 April 2016, when the young woman had a “birth outside the hospital” in a latrine. She then she, arrived at the hospital, she was arrested and charged with aggravated murder. The part of the Institute of Forensic Medicine was not conclusive on the incident, even if the defense is convinced of it the child was born dead because she inhaled meconium, the first excrement which, when expelled inside the uterus, causes damage to the fetus.
The Criminal Section of the Supreme Court overturned the sentence and ordered a new trial. The young woman was released after spending 33 months in prison.
The new judge, in his resolution on Monday, said that there was no way to prove the crime, that Evelyn suffered a complicated surrender and consequently decreed her final freedom, which generated a wave of hope among the Salvadorans. But the truth is that three years later, El Salvador continues to imprison women who lose their pregnancies, locking them up for life.
Clarin editorial staff with information from RFI and AFP
ap
Source: Clarin
