In El Salvador women are prevented from making decisions about their bodies and, even if pregnancy is interrupted naturally with no intervention, they find themselves subjected to persecution and often are condemned to prison.
Luis Beatón
According to the 2024 census, women represent 52.8% of the total 6,029,976 population. However, their voice to decide has not been listened to. This is because the Salvadorean penal code states, in article 133, that abortion is punished by a jail term of between two and eight years, and up to twelve years if there are aggravating factors.
The law devotes a whole chapter to the penalisation of abortion. An example of how the problem is approached should be remembered. In September a young woman of 19 was arrested and jailed after facing an obstetric emergency in the hospital where she went in search of medical attention. Instead of receiving help she was reported, handcuffed to a stretcher and moved directly from hospital to prison.
The Feminist Assembly, the Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalisation of Abortion and the Feminist Collective denounced the case which, in their opinion, highlighted the ‘criminalisation’ faced by women in the country.
The young woman’s case is reminiscent of other similar ones, such as that of Evelyn in 2019 and Lilian, the last of the 73 women freed after being imprisoned for obstetric emergencies.
Activists emphasise that these examples are evidence of a pattern of criminalisation that affects women of few means. They recall the case of Manuela, a young woman from the rural area of Morazán, who suffered an obstetric emergency and gave birth outside hospital in 2008, for which she was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment for aggravated homicide.
While she was in prison, Manuela was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease with nodular sclerosis. She was prescribed chemotherapy and her representatives say there was a period when this was denied to her. She died on 30th April 2010 in the prison wing of Rosales hospital in San Salvador, according to the same sources. In the opinion of defenders of women affected by these processes, women who face emergencies related to pregnancy should not be criminalised.
An activist has said that they reiterate their claim that “the Salvadorean state infringes and violates international treaties and does not offer alternatives to women facing obstetric complications or who give birth outside hospital”.
The only alternatives for these women are death or prison, maintains Alejandra Burgos of the Human Rights Defenders Network. For her part, Morena Herrera, president of the Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalisation of Abortion, emphasises that the state of exception system must not be applied to obstetric emergencies.
“An obstetric emergency is a health problem affecting women and pregnant people, it must be approached with health care and attention services and not as a safety problem”, she underlined.
“When the Salvadorean state tackles obstetric emergencies with the tools of a state of exception it commits a double discrimination and violation of rights: because it criminalises poor women and because it treats them as delinquents who threaten society’s safety and that is not the case”, she affirmed.
Abortion has been prohibited in the country with no exceptions since 1998 and the law punishes it with between two and eight years in prison, although it is often classed as ‘aggravated homicide’ which brings sentences of thirty to fifty years in prison. With respect to this legislation and policy, in a markedly religious country, activists like Ivonne Polanco of the Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalisation of Abortion express their worry over “the serious effects this legislation against the interruption of pregnancy continues to have on women’s lives and health”. It is a reality that there is criminalisation of women who face obstetric emergencies and are denounced for abortion, especially poor women and those of few means. Pl
(Translated by Philip Walker – Email: philipwalkertranslation@gmail.com) – Photos: Pixabay
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