Rape victim freed of baby murder
El Salvador judge acquits woman charged with infanticide after she gave birth in a toilet.
USULUTAN: A judge in El Salvador has acquitted a 20-year-old rape victim originally charged with murder after giving birth prematurely in a toilet.
Imelda Cortez’s daughter survived, but the woman was charged with homicide after the baby was found in a septic tank.
It was seen as a landmark case by women’s rights groups in El Salvador, where abortion is completely banned and women can face up to 40 years in prison, even for a miscarriage.
A court in the southeastern city of Usulutan “absolved” Cortez, her defence lawyer Bertha Maria Deleon wrote on Twitter on Monday.
A spokesman from the La Casa de Todas feminist group confirmed that Cortez was “free”.
Cortez was impregnated by her stepfather, who allegedly raped her repeatedly for seven years. She has already spent more than a year and a half behind bars awaiting trial.
The case took a dramatic turn when prosecutors changed the charge against her from homicide to “abandonment and neglect”.
“We know that Imelda didn’t commit any crime,” one of Cortez’s lawyers, Keyla Caceres, said earlier.
The premature birth was discovered after Cortez sought hospital treatment in April 2017 for a hemorrhage.
Cortez said she had felt something come out of her when using the bathroom.
Police and soldiers inspected the septic tank at Cortez’s house and found a crying baby “covered in faeces and white dust,” according to legal authorities.
The baby was taken to hospital and survived.
El Salvador has some of the toughest anti-abortion laws in the world, banning the process even in cases of rape or when a mother’s life is at risk.
Caceres said Cortez was representative of “girls and young adolescents whose human rights are completely violated” by the country’s unforgiving abortion laws. — AFP