Anastasia Moloney, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Nov 14, 2022
BOGOTA – When convicted murderer Teodora Vasquez was freed after more than a decade in prison, the Salvadoran single mother faced a whole new challenge – a teenage son she barely recognized, a wall of rejection and a digital world she didn’t get.
Plus no way to make ends meet. “I had to start with nothing,” Vasquez recalled.
July 4, 2022
Reuters
SAN SALVADOR - A woman in El Salvador has been sentenced to 50 years in prison for aggravated homicide in a controversial case in which authorities argued she had killed her baby after giving birth, while her defenders said she had suffered a miscarriage.
Salvadoran authorities said the woman carried her baby to near-full term and gave birth in June 2020. After having the baby, she stabbed it in the neck six times, they said.
It may take decades to constitutionally legalize abortion in the United States again, but advocates point to opportunities that could speed up such efforts.
June 24, 2022
By Nicole Acevedo
Human rights attorney Paula Avila-Guillen never thought she'd be fighting to decriminalize abortions in the U.S. until now, as nearly two dozen states move to ban the procedure following Roe v. Wade's official repeal Friday.
A leader of Latin America's "green wave" movement for reproductive rights, earlier this year Avila-Guillen helped legalize abortions for women up to 24 weeks-pregnant in her native Colombia, which now joins Argentina and parts of Mexico in the short list of places in Latin America where terminating a pregnancy is no longer a crime.
By LUIS ANDRES HENAO and JESSIE WARDARSKI
Jun 9, 2022
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Teodora del Carmen Vásquez was nine months pregnant and working at a school cafeteria when she felt extreme pain in her back, like the crack of a hammer. She called 911 seven times before fainting in a bathroom in a pool of blood.
The nightmare that followed is common in El Salvador, a heavily Catholic country where abortion is banned under all circumstances and even women who suffer miscarriages and stillbirths are sometimes accused of killing their babies and sentenced to years or even decades in prison.
As the U.S. Supreme Court looks set to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling that established the right to abortion, campaigners for abortion access from Africa to Latin America say the move could have devastating consequences
by Nita Bhalla and Anastasia Moloney, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Monday, 30 May 2022
NAIROBI/BOGOTA - As soon as Kenyan housewife Ann found out she was pregnant in September last year, she knew having the child was out of the question.
For years, the 27-year-old had been a victim of domestic violence: her husband beat her routinely, denied her money to feed their three children, and had sexual relationships with other women.
A court in El Salvador has sentenced a woman who suffered an obstetric emergency that ended her pregnancy to 30 years in prison for aggravated homicide
By The Associated Press
10 May 2022
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador -- A court in El Salvador has sentenced a woman who suffered an obstetric emergency that ended her pregnancy to 30 years in prison for aggravated homicide, according to a nongovernmental organization assisting in her defense.
The Citizen Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion said Tuesday in a statement that a woman they identified only as “Esme” was sentenced Monday. The woman had already been in pre-trial detention for two years following her arrest when she sought medical care in a public hospital.
By Marcos Alemán, The Associated Press
Tue., Feb. 22, 2022
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — The four women all had sought medical help for obstetric emergencies, and each ended up in prison sentenced to 30 years on aggravated homicide convictions for allegedly terminating their pregnancies.
After spending a combined four decades behind bars in El Salvador, one of the four countries in the Western Hemisphere with total bans on abortions, they were recently released thanks to a campaign by human rights activists.
‘Elsy’ was sentenced to 30 years for aggravated homicide over miscarriage and is fifth such woman to be released since December
AP in San Salvador
Wed 9 Feb 2022
El Salvador has released another woman imprisoned for aggravated homicide who after suffering an obstetric emergency was accused of aborting her pregnancy in a country where abortion under any circumstances is banned.
The woman, who activists helping her identified only as Elsy, had served more than a decade of a 30-year sentence. She was the fifth woman released before completion of her sentence since late December of last year.
Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/09/el-salvador-woman-freed-abortion-law-10-years
Anastasia Moloney
AUGUST 31, 2020
BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - More than 100 girls in El Salvador, some as young as 10, got pregnant after being raped at home during the coronavirus lockdown, but strict laws mean they have no safe options to end unwanted pregnancies, campaigners said on Monday.
Under El Salvador’s total ban on abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, a deformed fetus or when a mother’s life is in danger, the girls must carry the pregnancies to term or seek risky backstreet abortions, say reproductive rights advocates.
U.N. group says Salvadoran women unfairly locked up for abortion crimes
Anastasia Moloney, Thomson Reuters Foundation
March 2, 2020
BOGOTA, March 2 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Three Salvadoran women put in prison for abortion-related crimes were detained unfairly and arbitrarily, a United Nations expert group will say in coming weeks amid growing calls for the Central American nation to ease its total abortion ban.
While the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention does not have the authority to order release of a detainee, rights groups hope its recommendation will put pressure on El Salvador to review cases of women behind bars for abortion-related crimes.
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