“They Are Girls, Not Mothers”—Protecting Sexual Abuse Victims from Forced Pregnancy and Childbirth (UN Human Rights Committee)

The Center for Reproductive Rights and its partners brought four cases to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in May 2019 against Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Ecuador for failing to protect the human rights of sexual violence survivors. Seeking justice, reparation and the creation of global human rights standards, the Center and its partners submitted petitions on behalf of four girls who were 14 years old or younger when they were raped and impregnated by older men in positions of power. The girls had little to no access to sexual health and reproductive services—including abortion—and were forced into pregnancies and maternities they didn’t want to continue with, putting their health and lives at risk.

These cases were presented as part of a larger strategy in Latin American movements called “Son niñas, no madres”—in English, “They are girls, not mothers”—and mark the first time that four petitions are being presented before the UN Human Rights Committee against different states with a combined strategy to tackle a region-wide issue.

In addition to holding the governments of Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Ecuador accountable for violating petitioners’ human rights, the Center and its partners are asking that the UN Human Rights Committee: 

• Promote the importance of reforming abortion laws to ensure that all persons, especially girls, can access essential health care without discrimination.   
• Recommend states regulate abortion services through their health care system, rather than the penal system, in accordance with the World Health Organization. 
• Adopt measures that ensure survivors’ voices are heard and establish that forcing girls to become pregnant against their will constitutes torture.

Such a ruling could lead to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) protections for victims of sexual abuse throughout Latin America and worldwide and establish historic precedent impacting international laws.  

The four petitioners—Fátima from Guatemala, Lucía and Susana from Nicaragua, and Norma from Ecuador—are all from rural, economically marginalized communities where they could not access sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion care. Since the girls received little to no sexual education, some of them did not realize they were pregnant. In addition, each of the countries has strict abortion laws: in Guatemala and Ecuador, abortion is illegal with only very narrow exceptions; in Nicaragua, abortion is criminalized in all cases, with no exceptions.

See more about the girls and the abuse they endured under “About the Petitioners” below.

In these cases, the Center and its partners argue that:

» Forcing these girls to carry their pregnancies to term against their will led to severe physical, mental and social consequences.

• All four petitioners suffered serious psychological effects because of their trauma, such as suicidal thoughts and struggling to create long-standing relationships with their children.  
• The burdens of their pregnancies and motherhood also imperiled the girls’ social health, causing them to be stigmatized, bullied, and ostracized by their peers, and leading all four of them to drop out of school after giving birth. 

» These human rights violations were exacerbated by the fact that when the girls tried to report their abuse, they were revictimized by the very systems purporting to keep them safe.

• Although all of the girls gave the names and addresses of their abusers to their local justice system, those responsible have yet to receive any sanction. Instead, the girls were forced to travel for hours to file complaints, only for the justice system not to enforce any arrest warrants and decline to have the perpetrators sent to court, sentenced, or imprisoned.  

Access to Abortion Care and Sexuality Education Must Be Ensured  

Due to the extensive human rights violations against the four girls, the Center and its partners are asking the Committee for several remedies, including that: 

• Abortion services are regulated through healthcare systems, in accordance with the latest guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO), and not through systems that seek to criminalize women’s autonomous decisions. 
• Measures are taken to protect girls’ health and lives by allowing health care personnel to give information on and provide abortion services without fear of criminal prosecution. 
• The rights to non-discrimination be respected and guaranteed, and legislation be amended to ensure that all girls can access abortion care on equal terms. 
• The right to a dignified life for girls is guaranteed, which includes ensuring Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) in all school curricula so they can understand the implications of sexual relationships. 
• The right of girls not to be forced into motherhood is guaranteed. 
• The denial of safe and legal abortion services be considered a violation of the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. 

In the face of denial of sexual and reproductive health care, girls must have resources to access the health services they need and secure justice. 

Further, the cases argue that any Human Rights Committee rulings condemning Ecuador, Nicaragua and Guatemala would set a precedent in international jurisprudence that extends beyond the implicated states. Such a decision would have an expansive scope extending to all countries that have sovereignly committed to fulfilling the ICCPR, thereby requiring them to comply with the standards.

See specifics about how the three countries violated the girls’ rights under “Rights Violated Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” below.

Abortion Remains Inaccessible in Many Latin American Countries 

As the Center notes in the cases, these horrific stories are emblematic of a regional pattern of sexual and reproductive rights violations and inadequate judicial recourse for survivors. Only 2.67% of women of reproductive age in Latin America and the Caribbean live in countries that permit abortion on request—and even where abortion is legal, it is often inaccessible in practice. In El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, and Suriname, abortion is completely illegal, without exception.  

The Latin America and Caribbean region is also the only region in the world where the number of girls giving birth under the age of 15 continues to rise. Most of those pregnancies are the result of rape, frequently by family members or other men close to the victims. 

The UN Human Rights Committee is expected to issue its decisions in all four cases sometime in 2023. 

About the Petitioners

Fatima, 13, from Guatemala

In Guatemala, abortion is criminalized except when a woman’s life is at risk. In practice, states have interpreted this exception in the narrowest way possible to include only immediate and imminent death.  

• At 13 years old, Fátima was raped by a professor and former public servant who financially supported her family. State officials were aware that Fátima did not want to carry her pregnancy to term and that her mental health had deteriorated to the point of expressing suicidal thoughts. Still, they did not offer her access to abortion services or legal and psychological support. In September 2010, Fátima gave birth to a son. Shortly after, she filed a complaint with her local justice system. However, the Guatemalan government never detained him, and the process for his capture and arrest has yet to move forward. 

Norma, 12, from Ecuador

In Ecuador, abortion was illegal except when the pregnant woman was raped and has a mental disability, or when the pregnancy poses a risk to the woman’s life or health. Although Ecuador broadened its rape exception in 2021, survivors still face extensive barriers in accessing abortion services.  

• Norma was sexually abused by her father starting at the age of 12. Soon after, Norma attempted suicide. Despite her desire to terminate a pregnancy that posed a clear risk to her life and health, she received no psychological support or sexual and reproductive health services. She was also told that she was too far along to receive an abortion. When giving birth, Norma experienced degrading and traumatic treatment from her doctor. (After she refused to be touched, the doctor remarked that she had opened her legs before, so why could she not do so now?) Norma’s brother filed a complaint against their father with the local police, but nothing was ever done. 

Lucia, 13, from Nicaragua

In Nicaragua, abortion is criminalized in all cases, without exception.  

• After a priest sexually abused her for over a year, Lucía discovered that she was pregnant at the age of 13. Her pregnancy caused her to become socially isolated from her community, as her neighbors taunted her for being “the woman of the priest.” Due to shame and stigma, Lucía was forced to drop out of school. She was never offered access to sexual and reproductive health services, despite her desire to terminate the pregnancy. Although the state knows where the priest is and an official complaint has been lodged against him, he has faced no legal consequences for his crimes. 

Susana, 13, also from Nicaragua 

In Nicaragua, abortion is criminalized in all cases, without exception. 

• Susana’s grandfather began sexually abusing her when she was seven years old. At the age of 13, after six years of abuse, she became pregnant. Susanna lacked psychological and legal support, sexual and reproductive health services, and all access to maternal health care during her pregnancy. Since giving birth, Susanna has received numerous death threats from her grandfather. Her criminal complaint was rejected at least five times. She never obtained justice, and the perpetrator was never apprehended.

Rights Violated Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

The cases argue that Guatemala, Ecuador and Nicaragua violated several rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), an international human rights treaty enabling people to enjoy a wide range of human rights. The ICCPR rights violated are: 

• Right to Effective Remedy (Article 2.3 of the ICCPR): According to the General Comment No. 31, an effective remedy “should be appropriately adapted so as to take account of the special vulnerability of certain categories of person, including in particular children.” 
• Right to Life (Article 6 of the ICCPR, on its own and in conjunction with Article 24.1): According to the Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 36, “The obligation to respect and guarantee the right to life ‘extends to reasonably foreseeable threats and life-threatening situations that can result in loss of life (…) even if such threats and situations do not result in loss of life.’” 
• Right to Be Free From Torture or Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment (Article 7 of the ICCPR, on its own and in conjunction with Article 24.1): According to the Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 20, “The aim of article 7 is to protect the dignity and physical and mental integrity of the individual. The prohibition in article 7 relates not only to acts that cause physical pain but also to acts that cause mental suffering to the victim.” 
• Right to Liberty and Security (Article 9 of the ICCPR): According to the Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 35, security of person pertains to freedom from injury to the body and the mind, or bodily and mental integrity, and “includes an obligation for the State to protect against threats to the bodily integrity of persons, especially in the events of violence against certain categories of people, such as women and girls.” 
• Right to Privacy (Article 17 of the ICCPR): In K.L. v Perú, L.M.R v. Argentina and Mellet v. Ireland, the Human Rights Committee declared that denying access to abortion is a violation of the right to privacy.   
• Rights of the Child (Article 24.1, on its own and in conjunction with Article 17): Article 24.1 of the ICCPR should be interpreted in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child establishes an obligation to adopt measures of special protection for every girl and boy because of their status as children. The effects of this extend to the interpretation of all the other rights when a case involves minors. As such, countries have an enhanced obligation to protect the rights enshrined in the Convention.    
• Right to Freedom of Expression and Information (Article 19 of the ICCPR): UN Committees have insisted in numerous concluding observations that information on sexual and reproductive health services must be accessible, acceptable, available, and good quality. 
• Right to Equal Protection and Nondiscrimination (Article 26 of the ICCPR, in conjunction with Article 3): According to the Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 32, “Access to administration of justice must effectively be guaranteed in all such cases to ensure that no individual is deprived, in procedural terms, of his/her right to claim justice. The guarantee is violated if certain persons are barred from bringing suit against any other persons such as by reason of their race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.” 

Attorneys and Plaintiffs

Center Attorneys: Catalina Martínez Coral, Carmen Cecilia Martínez, and Milagro Valverde.  

Co-Counsel/Cooperating Attorneys: Planned Parenthood Global, Mujeres Transformando el Mundo (MTM Guatemala), Observatorio en Salud Sexual y Reproductiva (OSAR Guatemala), Surkuna Ecuador, and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP 

Plaintiffs: Fátima from Guatemala, Norma from Ecuador, Lucía from Nicaragua, and Susanna from Nicaragua

May 29, 2019

Cases filed at the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

• Innovative litigation filed against three countries to protect girls’ rights in Latin America, 05.19.19
• Just Girls: Reproductive Rights Violations in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2019