A Salvadoran woman sentenced to thirty years in prison for an abortion qualified as aggravated homicide was released on Wednesday February 9 following the commutation of her sentence after ten years of imprisonment.
“We celebrate the release of Elsy after ten years behind bars.
His wrongful sentence of thirty years for aggravated homicide is over”
, welcomed in a press release Morena Herrera, president of the Citizen Association for the decriminalization of abortion (ACDATEE).
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Elsy, identified only by this first name to preserve her anonymity, was in a women's prison near Zacatecoluca, about fifty kilometers southeast of San Salvador.
According to ACDATEE, the domestic worker suffered an
“obstetric emergency”
on June 15, 2011, after which she was taken into custody.
"The judicial process was marred by irregularities, it did not respect procedural guarantees, it did not respect the presumption of innocence and she was immediately arrested
," the association continued.
Elsy is the fifth woman to be released from prison since December, following Karen, Kathy and Evelyn, who were all serving sentences for aggravated homicide after suffering obstetric emergencies that led to miscarriages.
And Kenia was released from prison on January 17, she had been sentenced to thirty years for suspected abortion.
Elsy will be able to find her son, noted the association.
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The Salvadoran penal code has since 1998 prohibited abortion in all circumstances, even in the event of danger to the health of the mother or the child, and provides for penalties of up to eight years in prison.
However, prosecutions are usually for
"aggravated homicide"
, which carries a sentence of up to fifty years in prison.
Women's Equality Center executive director Paula Avila-Guillen called on Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele
"to release all other innocent women"
serving prison sentences in similar cases.
