The baby, the product of a rape, was found lifeless in the latrine where Hernandez gave birth in 2016.
The Attorney General’s Office of El Salvador, whose representatives did not make statements to the press, accused the young woman of aggravated murder in the form of a commission by omission and asked for 40 years in prison for her.
Hernandez had already been sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2016, but the Supreme Court overturned the sentence and ordered a retrial.
Evelyn Hernandez always insisted on her innocence. Among the proceedings, the Salvadoran was imprisoned for a total of 33 months, until in February this year she obtained parole.
The young woman always defended her innocence. She argued that she never knew she was pregnant and that she had lost consciousness during childbirth.
The teen who turns 30 years in prison for give birth to a dead babyAfter the acquittal was known on Monday, Hernandez visibly expressed excitement that her goals are now to continue studying and “get ahead.”
“Thank God justice was done. All this time it was hard because I was accused of something I was innocent of. I hope that many girls (women convicted of having an abortion) will soon leave (prison),” she said, while thanking all of the support she received.
Media care
Women’s rights activists closely followed her case inside and outside El Salvador and demanded her acquittal.
Bertha de León, the young woman’s defense attorney, explained that the judge said “there was no way to prove the crime and that is why he acquitted her; and has said it was a complicated birth, like that of many of the women who are still in prison for the crime of homicide.”
Evelyn Hernandez’s case received great media attention inside and outside El Salvador.Su history crossed Salvadoran borders and various international human rights organizations and in favor of the decriminalization of abortion requested in repeatedly to the Central American Prosecutor’s Office to drop the accusation against the young woman. Exceptional case
El Salvador has one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the world: abortion is illegal in all circumstances and the culprits face between two and eight years in prison.
Women who experience pregnancy complications and result in miscarriages and stillbirths are usually suspected of having an abortion.
In many cases, including Hernandez’s, the charge changes to one of aggravated homicide, which carries a minimum sentence of 30 years.
Normally, women accused of having an abortion in El Salvador were commuted to convictions when 30-year prison terms were considered “disproportionate and immoral,” but verdicts were not overturned.
Women’s organizations turned to Evelyn Hernandez’s case.The case of Hernandez, in fact, was the first of its kind in the Central American country in which a retrial was ordered.
Women’s rights activists hope this case sets a precedent for other women imprisoned under El Salvador’s strict anti-abortion laws to fight their sentences.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has previously asked El Salvador to reform its laws – which it describes as “draconian” – on abortion.
