Sentenced for miscarriage after rape. This is what happened to a young peasant woman of indigenous origin, whose name is not revealed by the UN Committee she had seized, who was raped by her father from the age of nine years old until she became pregnant at the age of thirteen in 2017.
By not guaranteeing her access to abortion and by condemning her after her miscarriage, Peru has violated the rights of this child victim of incest, the Committee on the Rights of the Child said on Tuesday.
“She went from being a victim to being a criminal”
“I am appalled by the way national authorities have treated a 13-year-old girl who was the victim of rape and incest,” committee chair Ann Skelton said in a statement from the committee that finds Peru has violated their rights to health and life. “Far from being protected, (…) she was (…) harassed by the health, police and judicial authorities. In fact, she went from being a victim to being a criminal,” she said.
From her first visit to Abancay hospital, she had expressed her wish not to keep this child, reiterating her request as her mental health deteriorated, without however being informed of her right to a therapeutic abortion. Peru, a very Catholic country, only authorizes therapeutic abortion in the event of danger to the life of the mother.
Sentenced without proof for self-abortion
With the help of an NGO, she then submitted a request for voluntary termination of pregnancy to the hospital and the prosecutor investigating her rape, without ever getting a response. For their part, the health personnel insisted on organizing prenatal examinations, going so far as to go to her home, sometimes accompanied by police, when she did not show up, according to the Committee.
Stigmatized and harassed even within her family and her community, she had to leave school and her village, continues the Committee, which adds that after her miscarriage, she was condemned without proof for self-abortion. This conviction, punishable by up to two years in prison, was overturned in 2019 after an appeal to the courts.
The Committee, made up of 18 independent experts, calls on Peru to decriminalize abortion in all cases of child pregnancy and to ensure that young pregnant girls have access to safe abortion, especially in cases of danger to health and the life of the mother, as well as in the event of rape, particularly in a situation of incest.