Eleven-year-old rape victim gives birth in Paraguay

Elizabeth Torales, the lawyer for the girl’s mother said the minor gave birth via caesarean Thursday.

She said the baby has no name yet, but the family has requested custody of the infant, to be cared for by the baby’s mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. When she was found to be pregnant, at five months, she was in good health. It sparked some talk about abortion, but other protests were aimed at securing better protection for children and stiffer child abuse penalties. In April, authorities ruled that the pregnancy could proceed. She stands just 1.39m tall and weighed just 34kg before her pregnancy. She said the girl would remain in the hospital for three or four days, “like any other patient who has had a cesarean”. The mother requested an abortion for her daughter who, she said, was raped and impregnated by the stepfather when she was 10.

Gilberto Benitez Zarate, accused of raping his 10-year-old stepdaughter, immediately after his May 9, 2015 arrest.

Paraguayan police also launched a manhunt for the girl’s stepfather, identified as 42-year-old Gilberto Benitez Zárate.

The girl’s mother was released on bond in June, but still faces charges.

Asked if the child will be able to nurse the baby, Villalba said, “we’ll see how she does as a mother”.

Paraguayan Health Minister Antonio Barrios told CNN earlier that neighbors were the ones who had reported the abuse, and that the mother had denied accusations against her husband. “The rapist even went to the girl’s parent-teacher conferences”, she told AFP.

The government’s refusal to authorise an abortion, or consider changing the law, earned condemnation from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, UN health officials and women’s rights groups within Paraguay.

The girl’s mother had wanted an abortion but Paraguay has some of the strictest abortion laws in the world.

In a statement Thursday, Amnesty worldwide said the organization was glad the girl had come through the birth, but the fact that “she did not die does not excuse the human rights violations she suffered at the hands of the Paraguayan authorities”.

The case cast a spotlight on child rape, pregnancy and abortion laws in Paraguay.

“The physical and psychological impact of forcing this young girl to continue with an unwanted pregnancy is tantamount to torture”, Guadalupe Marengo, Deputy Director for the Americas at Amnesty global said then.