They acquitted Evelyn Hernández, the Salvadoran violence …

Salvadoran justice acquitted Evelyn Hernández, a 21-year-old girl accused of aggravated homicide for failing to take care of her baby after an outpatient delivery. The pregnancy in Hernández was the result of a rape that she did not report because her attacker had threatened her. The prosecutor's office had requested a 40-year prison sentence for the young woman. Feminist activists from across the continent celebrated the freedom of Hernández, one of 17 Salvadoran women imprisoned for abortion.

Judge José Virgilio Jurado Martínez decided that when he fainted after undergoing an obstetric emergency, Hernández was not able to "fulfill the function of guarantee" of the baby's life. "The judge acquitted because he had no certainty to prove what the prosecution wanted to dispute and, in the face of this doubt, he acquitted the acquittal," he said. Page 12 Sara García, Salvadoran feminist activist and member of the Citizens' Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion.

On April 6, 2016, Hernández, who was 18 years old, began to experience abdominal pain. The young woman, who lives in a rural community in the province of Cuscatlán, went to the bathroom of her house, had heavy bleeding and fainted. Hernandez had been badually abused for months but did not suspect that she was pregnant because, according to defense lawyers, it was an asymptomatic pregnancy.

Hernandez's mother took her daughter to a local hospital, where the doctors determined that the girl had an abortion. According to Salvadoran law, abortion is not allowed under any circumstances and, therefore, doctors who have treated Hernandez have reported it to the police.

In the house of the young woman, security forces found the body of a 32-week-old baby in the septic tank. The autopsy established that the baby had died of "aspiration pneumonia". The prosecutor's office had asked for a 40-year sentence for the young woman because, she said, "she was responsible for protecting her baby's life and did not prevent her death".

"I am innocent, Prosecutor, examine the evidence, let me continue to live, I expect justice to be done," said Hernandez a few minutes before the hearing of the verdict. Bertha Deleón, one of the defense attorneys, said that "the evidence has no direct basis for establishing the intention to kill".

García said that Hernández's case "represents a path of injustices and systematic violations of human rights", after having been the victim of badual violence, having suffered an obstetric emergency and then "a process of criminalization. full".

"(She has faced all this violence, all the persecutions of a state that does not see the history of women, but only visualizes a woman who transgresses the role of the maternity social mandate." and, based on gender stereotypes, an entire adversarial process begins, "said García.

Ana Gladys Chinchilla, a member of the Salvadoran Network of Human Rights Defenders, said that criminalizing "women who suffer from obstetric complications" is a "constant" of Salvadoran justice.but to no woman, but to one with very little economic resources and a low university level. "

In July 2017, Judge Nury Velásquez sentenced Herrera to 30 years in prison.. The young was imprisoned in the Ilopango women's prison during 33 months until the Criminal Division of the Supreme Court of Justice quashes the conviction and ordered the repetition of the trial.

"The legal battle had a lot to do, but also a feminist and popular struggle, to be in the street, to be in the seedlings (demonstrations), to be in the social networks, to diffuse at national level but also international", Celebrated Garcia. The activist said the Hernández case was essential to continue to demand that the Salvadoran state "decriminalize abortion, put an end to the persecution of women facing an obstetric emergency and of course free the 16 women imprisoned for abortion ". They are still in prison.

Report: Ludmila Ferrer.