11-year-old girl raped in Bolivia was subjected to premature birth, lawyers denounce

Lawyers for the mother of the 11-year-old girl who was raped by her grandmother and became pregnant in Bolivia They denounced that the minor was subjected to a premature birth, local media reported this Saturday.

The 11-year-old girl, who became pregnant after being sexually abused by her grandmother, was for several days in a shelter of the Catholic Church, from where she was transferred to a hospital in the city of Santa Cruz, where according to the complaint, she underwent surgery.

“What need did the State authorities have to hasten the delivery? They will be responsible if something worse happens with that child,” said lawyer Néstor Higa, as quoted by local media.

The defense pointed out that the Ombudsman’s Office coordinated the transfer of the girl to the hospital and denounced that they separated the mother from the girl, which they described as a “fierce persecution” by the authorities.

The Ombudsman’s Office had already filed a complaint against the church, hospital officials and the municipal ombudsmen for children and adolescents of Yapacaní and Santa Cruz and later the Departmental Court of Justice of La Paz granted this institution guardianship over the girl for medical evaluation.

Likewise, the Ministry of Health formed a team of ten specialists among psychologists, gynecologists, psychiatrists, among others, to carry out a “strictly technical” assessment of the health of the girl who was already 23 weeks pregnant.

At the moment the authorities have not ruled on the minor’s health status or on the procedure to which she was subjected.

The case of the 11-year-old girl became known a couple of weeks ago and caused commotion and a new debate in Bolivia between those who defended the right of the minor to interrupt the pregnancy and those who rejected this possibility.

At first, it was learned that the mother of the abused girl had agreed to have an abortion performed on the minor, however, after being contacted by an organization belonging to the Catholic Church, the woman gave up the termination of her pregnancy. the minor.

The girl lived in the municipality of Yapacaní, in the eastern region of Santa Cruz, under the care of her 61-year-old grandmother, who is detained, since her parents constantly traveled for work.

This week the girl’s own mother denounced that she was not allowed to visit her daughter in the shelter of the Catholic Church where she was.

This controversial case reached the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which urged Bolivia to protect the girls from forced pregnancies, the same instance to which the mother of the minor had gone to request precautionary measures and to avoid the interruption of the gestation of her 11-year-old daughter.

For its part, UN Bolivia pointed out that subjecting a girl to a forced pregnancy is “classified as torture” and urged the authorities to intensify efforts to protect the rights of girl victims of sexual violence.

In Bolivia, abortion is considered a crime but according to the laws it has exceptions when there was a sexual assault, there is a congenital malformation or the life of the mother is in danger.

According to data from the House of Women, in 2020 there were 39,999 pregnancies under the age of 18, which means that 104 girls get pregnant per day in Bolivia, of which 6 are under 13 years of age.