More than 5,000 girls in Peru need to be mothers How does the unborn child law violate the rights of minors?

Since 2002, every year March 25 is the day of the unborn child is celebrated. After the promulgation of Law No. 27654 adopted in the same year, it is ambiguous to protect life in the womb of the mother and to recognize the rights of the unborn person.Statistics: More than 5,000 girls in Peru are forced to become mothers because of this law. Forced maternity hospitals and child and adolescent pregnancies in Peru have been an urgent issue for decades, but the Congress of the Republic approved the national interest this Wednesday that day.

“The plenary session was approved with 77 votes in favor of my author's consent in 1992, celebrating the “Day of the Unborn Child” of importance and national interests, which means 'unborn children' as all human beings from the moment of conception.” The promoter of the project wrote: House of Representatives Alejandro Muñate de Renovación Popular.

Although there are no exact figures for 2022, as of 2020, the number of girls under 10 years of age has tripled in Peru, which is known as a direct result of the surge in sexual violence during the pandemic.

The Live Birth Certificate Registration System (CNV), the platform of the Ministry of Health (Minsa), recorded births attended health facilities in the country, and in 2019 only registered 9 births for mothers under 10 years of age. However, this is an incomplete approach because it is not complemented by girls who have had abortions or out-of-hospital births.

A minor who has been sentenced as a mother is described as an advisor to the UN Human Rights Council in a report of the Special Rapporteur published on January 5, 2016.

In addition, the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Rights Defense Committee (Cladem) mentions that forcing girls to become mothers is a form of torture.

“Forcing girls to carry around maternity hospitals they don't want is to torture them to remember the violence they experienced. Unwanted pregnancies are being forced, causing trauma and seriously affecting their development.” Mariel Távara Arizmendi, a psychologist specializing in the treatment of cases of sexual violence, told Wayka in 2019.

As a result, during the introduction of a bill proposing to decriminalize abortion in the case of pregnancy, the NGO Manuela during a rape exposed last December by House of Representatives Ruth Luke Ramos reported that in 2021, 26 girls give birth by rape every week.

“Legal, safe and free abortions for victims of sexual violence will give them the opportunity to choose freely, without risking their lives in secret abortions, without beliefs that limit their right to make decisions,” the feminist organization explained on its Twitter account.

The draft law submitted by the Juntos for Peru-JPP legislator recalled: “The State guarantees comprehensive sex education in educational institutions of basic education at all levels and forms, without discrimination, with particular emphasis on the prevention of gender-based violence against women and children and adolescent pregnancies”.

They don't want babies

In 2021, a study by the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) reported that 7 out of 10 teenage mothers do not want to have children, in addition to posing a risk to their physical and mental health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), complications during pregnancy and childbirth are the second leading cause of death among young women aged 15 to 19 years around the world.

As a result of this early pregnancy, many girls leave school and affect 8 out of 10 children, the Ministry of Education estimates.

“It's totally detrimental to the girl's mental health and development,” says Efe Rossina. She leaves school and becomes a victim of stigma in her community, and if she reports, the family does not see her well because she is blaming a man in her environment.” Guerrero, director of the program at the Center for the Promotion and Defense of Sexual and Reproductive Rights (Promsex).

The gynecologist Miguel Gutiérrez told the Wayka portal that abortion should be decriminalized in Peru on the grounds of sexual rape. This can only be applied if there is even the slightest evidence of serious damage to mental health.

“In Peru, therapeutic abortion is decriminalized, but abortion for rape is not decriminalized and abortion is not decriminalized against malformations incompatible with life. These two become part of therapeutic abortion when these violence or malformations seriously affect mental health, causing harm to health. It would be nice if both rape and malformations incompatible with life were decriminalized for their own causes.” He concluded.

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In Congress, Pedro Castillo repeated several verses in his speech by Anibal Torres last week.