Aurelia García Cruceño, a 20-year-old indigenous girl, was released after having spent three years in prison for a kinship homicide conviction; crime to which she was sentenced in a process that has received several complaints of irregularities by feminist organizations and human rights defenders.
The facts for which García was charged date back to 2019, when he was 18 years old. The young woman who lived in Xochicalco, in the Mexican state of Guerrero, began to be the victim of sexual abuse by a 50-year-old police officer who worked in the sector.
Aurelia decided not to say anything about the rapes and when she found out she was pregnant she decided to run away. She fled her community to stay with her aunt, where she suffered a miscarriage.
In a hearing that lasted eight hours, Aurelia García was released after having spent three years behind bars in a controversial process that the judge dismissed on the grounds that there is not enough evidence to consider that the young indigenous woman would have committed a homicide by reason of relationship.
(Also: They would have been killed for a house: the crime of actor Andrés Tirado and his brother)
The young indigenous suffered a miscarriage in October 2019, eight months into a pregnancy resulting from rapeafter having fled from her community for fear of the reprisals she could have received for having a child out of wedlock.
During the abortion, Aurelia lost so much blood that her own life was at risk, the medical team treated her and while in the hospital,Still in a state of helplessness and disorientation due to loss of blood, she was arrested by the police for the murder of her son.
She was sentenced to 13 years in prison, of which she spent three in the Iguala (Guerrero) prison.
(You may be interested in: What does it mean for the US to deliver Patriot anti-missile systems to Ukraine?)
Aurelia was forced to sign documents acknowledging her guilt. At least six international human rights organizations tell in a story sent to the court that, The young woman, while handcuffed to the bed, signed the documents of the Prosecutor’s Office, which were also in Spanisha language that Aurelia García did not speak.
(Keep reading: Peru and Mexico clash over asylum for the family of former President Pedro Castillo)
The same lawyers who were supposed to defend García told him, in Spanish and not Nahuatl (his native language), that he had to accept the 13-year sentence and that otherwise he would spend 50 years in prison.
Aurelia never had an interpreter and, according to the report presented by human rights organizations, was deceived into accepting the sentence in a process that has no legal solidity because “he never fully understood what he was accepting.”
A case, like many in the country
For women in the state of Guerrero, the situation is particularly difficult due to drug trafficking conditions, high rates of rape of women, and clandestine abortions.
(Furthermore: Volodimir Zelenskiy asks the US for more help to speed up the Ukrainian victory
In addition, indigenous women are in greater conditions of vulnerability due to community traditions that force them to marry and have children at a very young age, among other gender-based violence and lack of knowledge of their native language.
Despite the fact that the Supreme Court of Mexico decriminalized abortion last year, and that the Congress of Guerrero approved the decriminalization of abortion up to 12 weeks of gestation, Prosecutors have used legal resources to continue sentencing women who abort voluntarily or involuntarily, as in the case of Aurelia.
They are not sentenced for abortion, but for other crimes such as kinship homicide, omission of care or infanticide.
Aurelia García dreams of being a teacher
After being sentenced in 2019, the Mexican Institute for Human Rights and Democracy (IMDHD) appealed the sentence.
Until this Tuesday it was determined that, in effect, there were violations of due process and the trial was repeated.
“In these three years in prison I learned to speak Spanish. Now I want to study and achieve my dreams”assured García happily on the Fuerza Informativa Azteca television channel, as she left the prison, received by her family, friends and members of feminist organizations and human rights defenders.
(Also: Kfir: Colombia would buy 16 Rafale fighter planes for 2,500 million euros)
García dreams of studying to be a bilingual teacher and teaching indigenous children who speak Nahuatl.
Santiago Andres Venera Salazar
INTERNATIONAL WRITING*
With media information
More news
#Aurelia #García #indigenous #accused #murder #miscarriage #released