Lucia (the first name has been changed) will be able to sleep more peacefully. His rapist was sentenced on Friday February 14 to eighteen years in prison. The girl was only 11 years old when she became pregnant as a result of rapes committed by her grandmother's companion, then 65 years old. Despite her pleas, she was unable to have an abortion and had to have a cesarean section at five months pregnant on February 27, 2019. The baby died ten days later.
Cecilia Ousset, one of the doctors who performed the caesarean section, published a photo of the prisoner handcuffed and taken away by a police officer after his trial on Facebook. "Lucia had explicitly asked:" I want the photo of the old handcuffed so that I can sleep peacefully "", justified Mme Ousset.
The trial, which took place in Tucuman, in northwest Argentina, followed an expedited process and lasted only one day. The man was convicted of "rape doubly aggravated by the serious damage to the little girl's mental and physical health and by the situation of cohabitation". Lucia did not live with her mother, since her sisters had been raped by their stepfather and the three children had been placed with their grandmother, in the small village of Burruyacu.
Symbol of restriction on access to abortion
During the hearing, Lucia’s mother asked for the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison against the accused, "Which caused terrible harm and destroyed life and left its mark on (her) girl and all (her) family. "
"This accelerated trial with a sentence approaching the maximum provided was the best option to protect the child, who will not have to go through a long trial which could re-victimize and be stigmatizing while she is rebuilding her life" , said the lawyers for the organizations representing Lucia, Emilio Guagnini, of the Argentine Northwest Lawyer for Human Rights and Social Studies (Andhes) and Celia Debono, of the Latin American and Caribbean Defense Committee of women's rights (Cladem).
The court also demanded from the Tucuman provincial authorities free psychological assistance for Lucia, a scholarship for her to continue her studies and social assistance for her and her family.
Lucia had become the symbol of the restriction of access to abortion in Argentina, whereas he is normally authorized by the penal code of 1921 in the event of rape and in the event of danger to the health of the pregnant woman. When her pregnancy was detected, she specifically asked to be told "Take away what the old (him) had put in it. "
Faced with his suicide attempts, Lucia had been hospitalized for four weeks in February 2019, during which the authorities at Eva-Peron hospital had argued of her mother's hesitation to delay the practice. Tucuman’s homicide prosecutor Adriana Giannoni had ex officio appealed to the hospital not to terminate the pregnancy. When, finally, under pressure from feminist organizations, the family judge ordered the abortion to be carried out, all the doctors at the hospital, fearing legal consequences, had refused to participate.
Charges for homicide
The hospital had to call in doctors from the private sector, José Gijena and Cecilia Ousset, who resigned themselves to perform a caesarean in the face of Lucia’s advanced pregnancy. Umbilical cord and placenta samples had been preserved for the purpose of a trial against Lucia’s rapist. DNA analyzes confirmed that her grandmother's companion was the perpetrator of the rape.
The baby, who weighed only 600 grams, did not survive more than ten days. Prosecutor Giannoni then indicted Mr. Gijena and Mme Ousset for aggravated homicide. During the trial, the organizations Andhes and Cladem demanded that the charges against the doctors be dropped.
In Argentina, some 355,000 abortions are performed every year in hiding. Since the debates in Parliament on the legalization of the termination of pregnancy in 2018 – the law had been rejected by the Senate on August 9 – the number of legally performed abortions, within the framework of the exceptions provided for by law, has strongly increased, but women continue to die in poor sanitary abortions.
Argentine President Alberto Fernandez (Peronist), in power since December 10, 2019, has announced that he will present the 1st March a new legalization project. "I no longer want any woman to die in an abortion", he said in an interview with World February 6. Feminist organizations are planning a "pañuelazo" (demonstration with a green scarf, a symbol of the fight for the right to abortion) on February 19 in Buenos Aires and in hundreds of cities across the country. In Paris, a rally is to take place at Place de la République.
The Argentinian Church, for its part, will organize a “mass for life” and calls for a rally against the decriminalization of abortion on March 8, International Women's Rights Day.
