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IN NOVEMBER 2011, María Teresa Rivera, a 28-year-old garment factory worker and single mother of a five-year-old son was living in a town just outside San Salvador. Life was already tough for her, living in poverty and trying to raise her child in an area ravaged by violent criminal gangs. But things were about to get an awful lot worse.
She began to feel unwell, and went to the bathroom. She was found bleeding on the bathroom floor by her mother-in-law, and was rushed to hospital. She was having a miscarriage, but she hadn’t known she was pregnant. For most women, a crisis such as this is a health crisis, and a deeply personal issue. But for poor, young women and girls in El Salvador it can often be life-shattering.
El Salvador is one of only nine countries in the world that has a total ban on abortion. It is a country where the Catholic Church holds considerable political and social power. Its influence led to a 1998 constitutional amendment asserting that life begins at the point of conception and the total ban on abortion that followed.
Suicide accounts for 57% of all deaths of pregnant girls aged under 19
It is poor, young, rural women and girls who are most harmed by this law. Middle class and wealthy women travel to access abortion services in private clinics in Mexico or the US. But that’s not an option for those who live in poverty, resulting in an estimated 20,000 clandestine abortions in El Salvador every year. According to the World Health Organisation, 11% of such abortions result in the death of the woman or girl.
El Salvador’s abortion laws are killing poor women and girls. It has amongst the highest levels of teenage pregnancy in the world. Suicide accounts for 57% of all deaths of pregnant girls aged between 10 and 19.
One doctor Amnesty International spoke to detailed how he treated a ten-year-old pregnant rape victim. Termination of her pregnancy wasn’t a legal option, so she was forced to go through with the pregnancy and delivered a baby by caesarean section at 36 weeks.
Sent to prison for 40 years
But perhaps the starkest example of the violently ideological application of that law is the prosecution of poor women and girls who have miscarriages or abortions for murder. When María Teresa arrived at the hospital she was reported to the police by a member of staff. From that moment, her fate was sealed. She was taken from hospital to prison, where she was held until July 2012. She was charged with aggravated homicide, the aggravating factor being that the ‘victim’ was related to her by blood.
She met with her publicly appointed lawyer five minutes before her trial and no proper defence was offered on her behalf. For example, the court dismissed the idea that she didn’t know she was pregnant because, in January 2011, she told a work colleague she thought she might be. A full eleven months before her miscarriage. No-one pointed out to the court that she couldn’t have been pregnant for eleven months.
María Teresa was sent to prison for 40 years because she was poor, marginalised and a woman. And she is not alone. Her experience is typical of many other cases, all involving young, poor and marginalised women and girls.
I visited her in prison last week when I took part in an Amnesty International mission to El Salvador. We were there to launch a report on violence against women and the impact of the total ban on abortion on the human rights and of women and girls.
María Teresa is serving her sentence in a prison that is 900% overcrowded, sleeping on the floor of a dormitory which houses 205 women. She is doing her best to get by, doing what she has always done, even in such appalling conditions. She works to earn some small amount of money to send home to provide for her son by sewing, washing clothes or fetching water for other prisoners.
Families ripped apart by injustice
I also met with the Salvadoran Government, the President of Congress, Justices of the Supreme Court and other officials. Amnesty International challenged them on the human rights violations suffered by women like María Teresa. All agreed there is a serious problem, but said the problem was beyond their control, pointing to the constitutional issue and the power of those who oppose abortion. It’s as if they expected us to believe they were not the ones in position of ultimate responsibility, and the only ones with the power to effect legal change.
The day after I met María Teresa in prison, I met her son and elderly mother-in-law. They are struggling, left alone to survive without her. María Teresa is not the only victim of this miscarriage of justice.
I also met other women who had been criminalised by El Salvador’s abortion laws. Some who spent years in prison, and whose lives and families – they were all mothers – were ripped apart by such injustice. Together with other women’s human rights defenders they are working against the odds to force a change in the law so that abortion is decriminalised in El Salvador.
Their dignity, courage and determination to ensure that El Salvador reforms its laws in line with its obligations under international human rights law is a bright light in the midst of all that darkness and despair.
Colm O’Gorman is the Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland. He recently took part in an Amnesty International Mission to El Salvador as part of the organisation’s My Body My Rights campaign. While there he met with senior government ministers and Justices of the Supreme Courts, NGOs working on the ground, and victims, survivors and their relatives.
To support the women and girls of El Salvador click here.
Profit,Profit and even more profit and on the other side……..Austerity, withdrawal of services,”restructuring” water tax etc. Anybody else see that Laissez-faire does not work for anybody except for the multinationals. The filter down policies are a fantasy, wealth and money is traveling only in one direction!
Maybe if people were more concerned with making profit than sitting on the dole we wouldn’t have so many people whining about austerity.
Austerity is hitting everybody especially those who are honest taxpayers who are hit even harder than those who are unfortunate enough to have to depend on the state for survival.
Get off the dole and do a bit of work then Fantastic!
So whats your answer to the problem you describe,god forbid we should inovate and build up our own multinational companies instead of relying on tax breaks to entice other countries talent to create jobs and employment here,but that would take dedication hard work and a belief in our own ability, are we up for it,highly unlikely judging by the rush for exits when the going gets tough.
I can read this article and appreciate it for all that it is, but President Higgins’ address last week in Chicago in which he stated that ” society needs to measure prosperity” by differing methods strikes more resonance with me.
What’s that thing they have in Bhutan (I think?) they have a “happiness index” or some such?
Budget cuts for 2013 : 4 Billion Euro
Cost to the exchequer of 12.5% corporation tax NOT being enforced: 4 Billion Euro
Do the math.
It would be interesting to see what % corporation tax each of the 10 paid on their profits.
Ireland inc. the best little country in the world to do business. Slave labour aplenty and taxes are only for the little people. We’ll send any amount of people to the poorhouse to protect your profits. Rob us blind, but don’t forget your TV licence or your billionaire ass is going to jail.
Hear hear……… tell it straight Jammin
Why not make it 25% and make a few quid
The majority of top companies are….not Irish. Neo liberal agenda in full swing. Ireland like a third world country being drained by multinationals.
So much for entrepreneur culture here. A complete myth
Those “not Irish” companies employee a hell of allot of full blooded Irish people, who spend their hard earned money on Irish food and products, putting meals on Irish plates and clothes on Irish peoples backs, whilst also keeping people off the Irish doll queues!
To build an entrepreneur culture, you need to have allot of entrepreneurs, all with great ideas which can be developed into something enormous, otherwise it wont make even a dent in the Irish economy.
Comparing Ireland to a third world country is ridiculously idiotic, to put it mildly!
You mean businesses employ and pay people? We know that. A bit of an idiotic comment if you don’t mind me saying. Maybe you might like to take a look at the real issues here?
How are Ryanair not included?
Or Intel?
Because they don’t really employ anyone in Ireland. Very few staff, all the rest are “contractors” employed by outside agencies. Really, as a company Ryan Air contribute very little to the Irish economy.
I assume you are joking @Larry. how many tens of millions of people do Ryanair bring here every year. Im sure their Vat bill alone is huge.
How does CRH manage to stay at the top? Their IT department is a joke. My bf worked there for a year, worst job he ever had (same for a friend who worked in their accounting dept).
They make loads of money, thats why they’re there.
Dell is in the top 10? An awful kip of a place to work. Soul destroying, global multinational, bureaucratic hell hole
What about Ryanair ? They would have got my vote and they are Irish too !
Got a shock when I read this story. First thing I saw was the add banner for labour and I thought to myself
“Jaysus Gilmore must be a great fella to work for”
Didn’t see Irish startup EnergyElephant on the list there…
It’s gearing up competition against Nest which was recently acquired by Google for $3.2 Billion.
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