Today March 8, in the framework of the commemoration of the National and International Women's Day, from "Beatriz Platform our strength for the right to decide" we join together claiming the joy and strength that Beatriz showed us in the fight for her life against the State of El Salvador to achieve the safe termination of a pregnancy incompatible with life outside the womb that, in addition, put her health and life at risk in 2013. As a young woman living in the countryside, Beatriz challenged the absolute criminalization of abortion in force in the country since 1998, demonstrating the profound injustice of laws that do not take into account the conditions and needs of women.
Ten years after Beatriz moved the Salvadoran and world society with her petition "I want to live". very few things have improved for girls and women in El Salvador, with a deeply authoritarian and very efficient government in the dismantling of earned rights, today we face conditions of greater vulnerability and systematic violation of human rights where imposed pregnancies resulting from sexual violence remain a constant unattended at the national level.
In the first semester of 2022, pregnancies in girls and adolescents registered in the national network of services represented 20.5% of total pregnancies, with a higher incidence in La Libertad, Sonsonate and La Paz. With greater prenatal enrollment of pregnant girls aged 10 to 14 years in rural areas, and at least 49 pregnant girls between the ages of 11 and 14 years should receive high reproductive risk (HRR) care.1
On the other hand, the report on acts of violence against women,2 indicates that during the first half of 2022, 3,299 acts of sexual violence were recorded, of which 2,997 (90.8%) were committed against women and girls, that is, 17 acts of sexual violence against women and girls per day, of these, 2,123 (64.35%) acts of sexual violence were committed against girls and adolescents under 18 years of age, which shows the violence faced by girls and women in El Salvador.
On March 22 and 23 the Salvadoran State will once again face the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), the highest court in the Americas, for violating the sexual and reproductive rights of women, this time it will have to answer for the way it acted in response to Beatriz's petition. We hope that justice will finally be done for her and her family, that Beatriz's struggle will make access to justice possible for other women in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Given the panorama of profound deterioration of human rights and the loss of guarantees of the possibility of dignified lives for children, adolescents, youth, women and people with the capacity to gestate, we decided to honor Beatriz's legacy, that is why we continue to accompany her family, her struggle so that there will be no more Beatrices, for her we vindicate our right to joy and rebellion to continue demanding that the Salvadoran State comply with its constitutional function of guaranteeing justice, legal security and the common good for all people.
El Salvador, March 8, 2023
#JusticeForBeatriz #BeatrizWantedToLive #WeAreTheForceBeatriz
1 Ministry of Health, Informe de Monitoreo del Plan Operativo Institucional 2022, Primer Semester
2 Ministry of Justice and Public Security, Semiannual Report, Acts of Violence against Women, El Salvador, January to June 2022.
