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EL SALVADOR – GROUND-BREAKING PARDON OF WOMAN IN
MISCARRIAGE CASE CONSIDERED ABORTION & HOMICIDE
Map of El Salvador. Source: UN Cartographic Section
23 January 2015 – The United Nations human rights office
today welcomed the ‘ground-breaking decision’ of the Salvadorian Legislative
Assembly to pardon a young women’s 30-year sentence in an abortion case.
Carmen Guadalupe Vásquez Aldana, who suffered a
miscarriage at the age of 18 after reportedly being raped, was convicted of
aggravated homicide after her crime was reclassified from ‘abortion’ to
‘aggravated homicide’ during her trial. She had already served seven years of
her 30-year sentence.
“The pardon was granted on 21 January following a complex
judicial review by the Supreme Court of Justice, which also required a majority
plenary vote by the Legislative Assembly. Guadalupe had served seven years of
her 30 year sentence,” a spokesman for the UN Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights (OHCHR)
said in Geneva today.
Rupert Colville said Ms. Vásquez’s petition was one of 17
cases presented before the Supreme Court in 2014 requesting pardons for women
who are imprisoned on similar charges. El Salvador has a complete ban on and
criminalizes abortion, even when the woman's life or health is at risk or in
cases of rape or incest.
“We are encouraged by the decision to pardon Guadalupe
and welcome the steps taken to review each case in line with due process
standards,” Mr. Colville said, reminding that several human rights mechanisms,
including treaty bodies and special procedures, have regularly expressed
serious concern about the total ban and criminalization of abortion in El
Salvador.
Such a ban has an impact on women's right to be free from
discrimination as well as their rights to life and to health among other human
rights, he added.
“We hope that other imprisoned women in El Salvador who
received similar convictions will be freed and that efforts will be made to
reform the legal framework on sexual and reproductive rights in line with the
recommendations of numerous human rights bodies.”