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Local Groups activity pack December 2014 El Salvador: End the ban on abortion

El Salvador’s total ban on abortion kills women and girls.

Every year, thousands of women and girls are denied their human rights by this ban. It doesn’t matter whether they are 10 years old and pregnant because they were raped, or whether the pregnancy is a risk to their lives: El Salvador’s abortion laws force them to carry the pregnancy to term.

Women who have a miscarriage could be jailed for up to 50 years for aggravated homicide, because the state suspects them of having a clandestine abortion.

There’s no denying it; El Salvador’s total ban on abortion is torture. It pushes women and girls just like Beatriz to the brink of death.

The ban reflects the discriminatory attitudes that pervade El Salvadoran society – attitudes that allow killings, beatings and rapes of women and girls to proliferate. Attitudes that deny them the right to make decisions that determine the course of their lives. Women and girls in El Salvador have had enough.

That’s why Amnesty members around the world are calling for the El Salvadoran government to decriminalise abortion on all counts, release all women jailed for pregnancy-related “offences”, and tackle the deep-seated discrimination against women and girls that restricts their every move.

Only then can women and girls in El Salvador have a fair chance at deciding how to live their lives.

Downloads
El Salvador December 2014 Monthly Action
El Salvador December 2014 Monthly Action sample letter
El Salvador petition