Abortion: the Inter-American Court of Human Rights takes up the case of Manuela, Salvadoran woman who died in prison
(Illustration) Demonstration of women in El Salvador in December 2017 to demand the release of women sentenced to long prison terms for having aborted.
Eighteen women are currently serving long sentences in El Salvador, one of the most repressive countries on this issue.
AP - Salvador Melendez
Text by: RFI Follow
6 mins
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) began to study the case of a young Salvadorian convicted of abortion and died in detention in April 2010. El Salvador is one of the countries in the world that has the most recent legislation. more repressive on abortion.
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El Salvador has an extremely repressive anti-abortion law, backed by the powerful Catholic Church, and 18 other women are serving long prison terms for abortion.
The Salvadoran penal code strictly prohibits abortion and provides for sentences of 8 years in prison.
However, very often judges qualify the loss of an unborn child as "aggravated homicide", punishable by sentences of up to 50 years in prison.
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Manuela's case is emblematic
Manuela, it is a pseudonym, had been convicted in August 2008 for abortion, precisely qualified as “aggravated homicide” by the judges.
According to her family, it was a miscarriage, suffered in February 2008. Sentenced to thirty years in prison, Manuela died on April 30, 2010 at the age of 33 in the prison service of the National Hospital of San Salvador, where she was being treated for lymph cancer.
The case, which pits the young woman's family against the State of El Salvador, “concerns a series of alleged violations of (her) rights in the context of the criminal proceedings which resulted in (her) conviction for aggravated homicide ( ...) in the context of the criminalization of abortion in El Salvador ”, according to the deed of reference to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
At the start of the hearing, the Court heard from expert Guillermo Ortiz, a Salvadoran gynecologist living in the United States, as well as Argentine lawyer Laura Clérico, who represents Manuela's family.
The doctor assured that "fear has gripped health personnel since 2001", when the Ministry of Health issued a directive ordering medical personnel to denounce "the slightest suspicion of abortion".
This is the first time that a case of conviction for abortion in El Salvador has been brought to court, according to Catalina Martinez, the Latin America director of the NGO Center for Reproductive Rights.
In San Salvador, Manuela's lawyer, Angelica Rivas, told AFP that she had "high hopes" that the court would establish "all the violations" suffered by her client.
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#ManuelaJusticiaYEsperanza #ManuelaJusticiaYEsperanza pic.twitter.com/5g8K5PnGUk
- EcuménicasSV (@EcumenicasSV) March 10, 2021
with AFP
The Manuela case in El Salvador, a dossier (in Spanish) from the Latin America editorial staff of RFI signed by Angelica Pérez
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