Yahoo – AFP, Hugo Olazar, 13 Aug 2015
The
entrance of the Red Cross Hospital where a young girl who was raped and
became
pregnant stayed, in Asuncion on May 8, 2015 (AFP Photo/Norberto Duarte)
|
Asuncion
(AFP) - An 11-year-old Paraguayan girl who was raped by her mother's boyfriend
gave birth Thursday, rekindling the uproar over authorities' refusal to let her
have an abortion.
The child,
who was 10 when she was raped, gave birth by C-section to a girl that weighed
3.5 kilos (eight pounds), said Dolores Castellanos, the doctor that monitored
the pregnancy.
The girl
has named the baby Milagros, which is Spanish for miracles.
The
pregnancy came to light when the girl went to the doctor with stomach pains in
April. Doctors initially believed she had parasites, but discovered on
examining her that she was five months pregnant.
The
authorities' handling of the case sparked outrage in this predominantly
Catholic country, where abortion is illegal except when the mother's life is
deemed to be at risk.
Officials
ruled the pregnancy could proceed.
The girl,
who turned 11 in May, was 37 weeks pregnant when she gave birth.
She stands
just 1.39 meters (four feet six inches) tall and weighed just 34 kilos before
her pregnancy.
She will
remain under observation for 72 hours, said Castellanos, head of child and
adolescent medicine at the Asuncion hospital where the baby was born.
Mario Villalba,
director of the Red Cross hospital, said the delivery "was like any other
Cesarean, without complications, the difference being the age."
Asked if
the child will be able to nurse the baby, Villalba said, "we'll see how
she does as a mother."
The baby's
father, Gilberto Martinez Zarate, age 42, was taken into custody in May and is
awaiting trial on rape charges. He could get between 12 and 15 years if
convicted.
The girl's
mother was also arrested for neglect but allowed to visit her daughter during
the pregnancy.
The lead
prosecutor on the case, Monalisa Munoz, said the girl was systematically abused
by her mother's boyfriend.
"She
was always at his mercy because the mother worked. The rapist even went to the
girl's parent-teacher conferences," she told AFP.
'Extremely risky'
The case
reverberated far outside Paraguay, with UN experts criticizing the Paraguayan
government for refusing to consider an abortion.
Amnesty
International called on Paraguay's government to repeal its strict
anti-abortion law, saying the girl was lucky to be alive.
Erika
Guevara, the rights group's director for the Americas, said the fact that the
child survived "does not excuse the human rights violations she suffered
at the hands of the Paraguayan authorities."
Officials
in the South American country "decided to gamble with her health, life and
integrity despite overwhelming evidence that this pregnancy was extremely risky
and despite the fact that she was a rape victim and a child," she said.
Castellanos,
the attending physician, insisted the girl's life was never at risk.
UNICEF has
accused Paraguay of failing to protect girls from sexual predators.
Every day,
two girls aged between 10 and 14 give birth here, it says.
At the
hospital where the 11-year-old girl gave birth Thursday, three other girls, all
aged 12, are due to give birth in the coming weeks.
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