She has to endure the horror for nine months.

That's how long she lives with the 61-year-old father of her stepfather.

Only when her aunt learns of the abuse does she escape from her tormentor.

She's already pregnant by then, from him.

And that for more than five months.

Tim Niendorf

Political Editor.

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The case shakes Bolivia and a dispute ignites around a question that divides the religious South American country: should the girl have an abortion or not? 

The eleven-year-old first decides to have an abortion, and her mother also agrees. But then Catholic church representatives contact the family, seek conversation and try to change mother and daughter's mind. “The only solution is to save, protect and support both lives with love,” they say. Nobody should be forced to have an abortion, not even in the face of the abuse, the Bolivian Bishops' Conference announced. Activists disagree. "Children, not mothers", they call in Santa Cruz in front of the hospital, from which the girl is finally released after an examination. “The rapist will be rewarded,” says one protester. And the girl who has her whole life ahead of her will be punished. There is a lack of solidarity with herand also of empathy.

Tormentor sits in jail

In the end, the Catholic Church in Bolivia will prevail.

The girl's family, says a church official, agreed to keep the pregnancy alive.

The church will keep its promise to provide the girl with medical and psychological support.

"Life has won."

Not only the demonstrators contradict this point of view.

Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo also criticized the role of the church in the case without naming the institution.

"If an eleven-year-old girl is forced to give birth as a result of rape, all of her rights are violated," he wrote on Twitter.

The girl, whom the whole of Bolivia is currently looking at, is now housed in church accommodation.

His tormentor is in jail.

Only a few years ago, the 11-year-old's sister was also abused, in this case by her birth father, who is also in prison.