A pregnant woman who suffered obstetrical violence during childbirth in Spain must be compensated, said a UN compensation committee, which gave Madrid six months to respond.
This is the third case in which UN experts are asking Spain to pay reparations to a woman who has suffered obstetrical violence.
Revise the legislation
"
A woman in Spain has suffered obstetrical violence because she suffered an irregular application of epidural anesthesia and a caesarean section without informed consent
," the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women tweeted. women.
“
The rights to safe and adequate reproductive health must be guaranteed
,” he added.
In its March 7 opinion, a copy of which AFP obtained on Friday, the Committee calls for the woman, whose identity is not disclosed, to be granted "full
reparation, including adequate financial compensation for the physical and psychological harm suffered
.
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“
The committee has conducted a thorough investigation into this matter.
Just listening to the victim and looking at all the evidence together is a form of justice, because the problem we encountered was that the Spanish courts did not pay attention to what the victim said,”
said told AFP Francisca Fernandez Guillen, one of the lawyers who brought the case before the Committee.
“
So we are very happy
,” she said.
The facts date back to January 2009. The victim turned to the UN committee in 2018, believing that the responses provided by the Spanish authorities and courts had not lived up to his expectations.
According to the Committee, the Superior Court of Andalusia issued a judgment on 20 January 2016 rejecting the victim's request, arguing in particular that her husband and mother had been notified for the Caesarean section.
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But the Committee considers that "
the cumulative facts of the present case, in particular the loss of dignity, the abuse and ill-treatment suffered (...), the irregular application of epidural anesthesia (...) and the lack of informed consent before performing a caesarean section, all of which left physical and psychological consequences for the author, constitute obstetrical violence
”.
According to the Committee, she subsequently suffered from “
post-traumatic stress
”.
In its conclusions, the Committee asks Spain to publish statistics on obstetrical violence and to revise its legislation on gender-based violence against women in order to include obstetrical violence.
Spain has six months to present to the Committee a written document describing the measures taken.