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TEODORA del Carmen Vasquez was freed from prison on Thursday after serving 10 years of a 30-year jail sentence for having a stillborn baby.
El Salvador’s Supreme Court commuted her sentence, ruling that there was no proof she tried to terminate her pregnancy.
Ms Vasquez was at work in a school canteen in 2007, in the final month of her pregnancy, when she began bleeding and suffered a stillbirth. Authorities charged her with aggravated homicide, alleging that she had aborted the foetus.
El Salvador has a total ban on abortion, with no exemptions even when women might die or have been raped. Women are often jailed on no evidence after sham trials.
In addition, male violence against women and girls is pervasive. UN special rapporteur Rashida Manjoo reported in 2011 that “impunity for crimes, socioeconomic disparities and the machista culture fostered a generalised state of violence, subjecting women to a continuum of multiple violent acts, including murder, rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment and commercial sexual exploitation.”
