An indigenous woman denounced Honduras before the UN Human Rights Committee, in Geneva, for prohibit her from having an abortion after becoming pregnant after being raped in retaliation for defending her landwomen's rights groups reported this Wednesday.
In Honduras there is a total prohibition on abortion even if the pregnancy is the result of rape, there is serious malformation of the fetus or the life of the pregnant woman is in danger, which prevented this humble 34-year-old woman from ending that pregnancy.
Besides, Until recently, the emergency contraceptive pill “which would have prevented pregnancy” was prohibited in the country. the NGO Center for Reproductive Rights and four other Honduran organizations said in a statement.
“She was raped by two men and sexually raped by one of them in retaliation for her work in defense of the territory.”
Regina Fonseca, director of the Honduran Women's Rights Center, which assisted the indigenous woman in her complaint to the UN, explained that the victim, identified by the pseudonym Fausia, “decided that she was going to go to the last consequences to achieve justice.” so that other women do not suffer the same.
“Fausia is an indigenous woman and Honduran human rights defender from the Nahua People who survived sexual violence. and had to face forced motherhood as a result of the total ban on abortion in force in the country,” the statement says.
She “was raped by two men and sexually raped by one of them in retaliation for her work in defense of the territory” in the eastern department of Olancho and “became pregnant, which caused her serious physical and mental suffering,” the note adds. , without mentioning the date of the event.
Honduras, the most dangerous country in Latin America for women
According to the Violence Observatory of the National Autonomous University of Honduras, this is the “most dangerous” country in Latin America for women, with 380 femicides in 2023, compared to 308 in 2022.
In Honduras “there is no possibility of guaranteeing the reparation that she needs,” but “also the justice that the thousand girls under 14 years of age who give birth each year in public hospitals as survivors of sexual violence need” and who “are obliged by the State to to a motherhood that they do not want,” said Fonseca.
Justice is also required for “all those [mujeres] that even with the prohibition they seek an abortion and do it clandestinely,” he added.
In addition, the activist said that Fausia has had to move house ten times in recent years for safety reasons. The organizations said in the statement that so that “Fausia's story is not repeated, it is necessary for the Honduran State to guarantee access to abortion in safe conditions (…) and put an end to the criminalization of voluntary interruption of pregnancy.”
However, legal reform seems difficult in the country, since in 2021 Congress, dominated by conservative parties, shielded the ban on abortion in the Constitution, so that it can only be eliminated with the votes of 96 of the 128 deputies.
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