A woman participates in a protest to commemorate International Safe Abortion Day in San Salvador, El Salvador. JOSE CABEZAS (Reuters)
The
Lesli case
has once again shaken the struggle for women's rights in El Salvador.
A court sentenced the young woman, 21, who lost a pregnancy two years ago, to 50 years in prison.
The sentence, as announced by the Attorney General's Office on June 29, was for the crime of aggravated homicide "to the detriment of her newborn daughter."
Feminist organizations that have accompanied Lesli assure that she suffered an obstetric emergency and demand that the authorities continue with the persecution and criminalization of women who lose pregnancies.
They point out that this is the first time in history that the maximum penalty has been applied since abortion was completely criminalized.
Lesli's nightmare began on June 17, 2020, at her home in El Volcán de San Miguel, a rural area in eastern El Salvador.
The young woman is the third of seven siblings in a family that lives in poverty, without drinking water or electricity, and subsists thanks to agricultural work.
Lesli was only able to study until the seventh grade, then she had to take care of her younger siblings.
"In the life of her and her family, her State has always remained absent," says the Citizen Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion, the organization that has accompanied the case.
At just 19 years old, he had to face a tragedy.
The night of that June 17 began his discomfort, his body had begun labor.
According to the statement from the Citizen Group, she felt like defecating, so she went to the latrine and expelled the unborn child.
"I felt like something was coming out of me," Leslie said.
It was the first time that she was going through a pregnancy, she did not understand well what was happening, and she was scared by what was happening.
Her relatives, with the intention of helping her, called the police and took her to a hospital.
Just 10 days later, on June 26, 2020, he had his first hearing.
But she was unable to attend because he was not in stable health.
She had lost a lot of blood and was on transfusions at the time.
That day the judge ordered preventive detention.
"The legal process against Lesli was full of irregularities and prejudices, in that sense the defense requested to annul the investigation stage because the judge did not admit the incorporation of evidence that demonstrated her innocence," says the feminist association.
Among the elements that they did not admit, she points out, are an expert opinion "that shows the gender violence to which Lesli had been subjected" and a request to carry out a psychiatric study.
"With all these gaps and doubts, the judge sentenced Lesli," the statement says, "basing his decision on mere gender bias."
According to the association, the magistrate gave a speech during the reading of the ruling in which he revictimized the young woman: "Mothers are the source of protection for children in any circumstance of life and you were not," he said. Judge.
El Salvador is one of the most restrictive countries in the world regarding abortion.
In the country, a law has been in force since 1997 that prohibits the voluntary interruption of pregnancy under all circumstances.
This punitivism has led to a scenario of persecution for those women who lose their pregnancies in circumstances of health emergency.
A similar case, known as the Manuela case, reached the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to question the role of the authorities in El Salvador.
Last November, the American court ruled against the Salvadoran State, and accused it of having violated personal freedom, judicial guarantees, equality before the law, the right to life and the personal integrity of women.
"My heart aches because we have tried to close the page on the sad history of El Salvador that unjustly condemns impoverished women due to obstetric emergencies, but the Salvadoran State, once again, continues to be cruel to women who have not had the rights or conditions to defend themselves”, said Morena Herrera, the president of the Citizen Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion.
The organization has announced that it will appeal the "disproportionate" ruling.
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