These women say their babies were stillborn: El Salvador courts convicted them of homicide under its harsh abortion laws
In El Salvador, abortion is illegal in all circumstances: it's also law that life begins at conception. A new documentary, Fly So Far, follows the story of 17 women convicted of homicide in El Salvador under its harsh abortion laws. The women were met by a group of human rights lawyers and nominated by the UN for their spokesperson. As advocacy groups mounted protests, the UN called for authorities to review the cases. Within El Salvador, some viewed the women's accounts with scepticism and hostility, and after meeting with the UN's top human rights official in 2017, an appeals court in the El Salvador upheld her conviction. Despite her hard-fought release, finding true freedom was harder than she expected. Vásquez found it hard to re-enter society and was surprised to learn that many were still struggling even years after their release. She is now looking forward to helping other women come out of prison to find jobs.
Veröffentlicht : vor 2 Jahren durch CNN in Lifestyle General
Some of them met behind bars
It took time for the women to find each other inside the prison where many of them were held.
The crime they were convicted of - killing their babies - carried such a stigma that they dared not mention it aloud. Those who did were beaten by fellow inmates.
"We were already friends, but nobody was talking about our cases," Vásquez says in Fly So Far, a 2021 documentary that follows her story.
It was only after a group of human rights lawyers met with them together that they realised the connections their cases shared. As advocacy groups mounted protests calling for their freedom, the documentary details how the group of detained women nominated Vásquez to be their spokesperson.
And as she fought for own conviction to be overturned, she also spoke out about the others' plight.
"I have rarely been as moved as I was by their stories and the cruelty they have endured," then-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said after meeting Vásquez and several other women in 2017. "It only seems to be women from poor and humble backgrounds who are jailed, a telling feature of the injustice suffered."
The UN official called for authorities to review the cases.
But within El Salvador, a largely Catholic and evangelical Christian country, some viewed the women's accounts with scepticism and hostility.
As international pressure mounted, the then-head of El Salvador's Institute of Legal Medicine told reporters that the women, who became widely known as "The 17," were in prison because they were accused of infanticide, not obstetric emergencies or abortions - a point he reiterated in a recent interview with CNN.
Dr José Miguel Fortín Magaña, a psychiatrist who resigned from his post directing the institute in 2015, says he stands by the scientific analysis in autopsies his staff conducted. Critiques of the testing used, he says, fail to take into account that additional analysis was done.
"These cases became emblematic because it got political. And when something becomes political the truth is no longer sought after," he told CNN.
A month after Vásquez met with the UN's top human rights official in 2017, an appeals court in El Salvador upheld her conviction. Again, the UN's human rights office weighed in, calling El Salvador's laws "draconian."
Two months later, 11 justices from El Salvador's Supreme Court commuted Vásquez's sentence, saying evidence in the case did not prove that she had taken any action to end her baby's life.
She was released in February 2018 after more than 10 years behind bars. A crowd of cheering supporters awaited her outside the prison gates. Her parents and her then-teenage son stood among them, waiting to embrace her.
But even after winning her hard-fought release, finding true freedom was harder than she expected.
Vásquez only had a third-grade education when she entered prison. During her years behind bars, she devoted herself to education, earning her high school diploma. But she says she quickly realised the years of classes she'd taken in prison weren't enough to help her find her footing once she was released.
"I didn't even know how to use a computer," she says.
Vásquez signed up for a computer course and enrolled in college soon afterward. But she says she still found it hard to re-enter society.
"I started to think, if I'm dealing with this, how are the women who were released before me?" Vásquez says. "What have they done to make it?"
Vásquez started searching for them to find out. Months after her release from prison, she brought together 16 women and began interviewing them about their experiences. She was surprised to learn that many were struggling even years after their release.
Some were shunned by their families. Many couldn't find jobs because of their criminal records.
"They started to tell me about very difficult situations, and some of these women had already been out of prison for eight years. And I said to myself, 'Let's do something. Let's change this reality, not just for us, but for all the other women who are going to come out of prison,'" Vásquez recalls.
And from there, she says, the idea of Mujeres Libres was born.
As she walks the halls of the group's headquarters in San Salvador and shows the space to CNN during a Zoom interview, Vásquez points proudly to rooms with bright blue bunk beds. For some who are originally from more rural parts of the country, the house is a temporary stopping point when they're in town for appointments. For others, it's a place to live so they can work in the city, where jobs are more plentiful.
During the week, the house is quiet and calm, but on weekends Vásquez says it's a hive of activity. Women travel hours from different parts of the country for counselling sessions and workshops on topics like playwriting and women's rights.
With each passing year, the number of potential members seems to grow.
Since 2009, more than 60 women who were prosecuted after suffering obstetric emergencies have been released, according to the Citizen Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion in El Salvador.
"I've been learning to open up," says 35-year-old Jacqueline Castillo, who says she was wrongfully convicted of attempted homicide after her baby was born in a latrine during an obstetric emergency. "It's helped me be able to let go of some things."
Castillo, who was released from prison last year after serving more than 10 years of her 15-year sentence, says she's been taking computer classes at the Mujeres Libres house, and gaining confidence to start making plans for her future. She's a domestic worker now but hopes one day to start her own restaurant.
"It's very beautiful, because you can let go of things and concentrate, and then you now have something else in your mind, something positive," she says. "You can learn something, and then you can share it with someone else."
The women are students. They also see themselves as teachers
Jocelyn Viterna points at an anatomy chart on her computer screen as Vásquez and other members of Mujeres Libres look on.
The Harvard professor has been studying these women's cases and the impact of El Salvador's abortion restrictions for years. But on Wednesday evenings this fall, she's serving in another role: their teacher.
At the request of Vásquez and other members of Mujeres Libres, Viterna is leading a weekly Zoom course about gender, sexuality and reproductive health.
Today's lessons: the anatomy of the female sexual and reproductive system, followed by explanations of how this anatomy connects with sexual pleasure.
"What do you think?" Viterna asks the class as she concludes her presentation. "Why do you think so many people see it as shameful to talk about this?"
Vásquez is the first to raise her hand with an answer. "I think it has a lot to do with our culture, and what our parents teach us," she says.
Today Vásquez and the other women are students. But soon they hope to be teaching these kinds of lessons, too, as they travel around the country and speak with Salvadoran youth in a series of presentations scheduled to begin next month.
The group plans to screen the documentary about their experiences, perform a play and lead discussion sessions.
Vásquez says she's already seen signs of a shift in El Salvador. Fewer women who have obstetric emergencies are being prosecuted, she says, after a 2021 Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling ordered the government to grant professional secrecy protections to doctors. That change means doctors are no longer required to report possible abortion attempts. Human rights groups had argued that medical personnel previously felt pressured to report patients fearing that they would be charged or sanctioned themselves.
Advocates also hope another case pending before the court could clear the way for legalising abortion in some instances in El Salvador and other Latin American countries that criminalise it.
But even if El Salvador's laws change tomorrow, Vásquez says there's still more work to do.
She sees a clear connection between the rarity of lessons like the ones Viterna is teaching them and the decisions that sent her and so many others to prison.
"We have to start educating the population, because that is how people are sensitised and how they take action and we get rid of ignorance," she says. "And that is how things will change."
From prisoners to 'women of steel'
Vásquez knows not everyone will welcome their message. Last year, she says, anti-abortion protesters tried to block screenings of the documentary about the group. The protest campaign spurred a flood of threats after her contact information was leaked online, she says.
"They kept saying they were going to report me so that I would shut up," Vásquez says.
But Vásquez says she's determined to keep speaking out.
Why spend so much time talking about a painful part of her past? And why take the risks more public exposure could bring?
"We aren't doing this for ourselves," Vásquez says. "What more can happen to us? We already went to prison. We already paid for crimes that we didn't commit. We are here, but sincerely we are doing this because we want at least the youth of future generations to have better lives."
As part of this year's upcoming speaking tour, the group will be performing a play they've written dispelling myths around menstruation.
Vásquez is excited to see how audiences respond. She's already seen first-hand how transformative taking the stage can be.
Last year they put on another play, "Mujeres de Acero," Spanish for "Women of Steel." Vásquez tears up whenever she watches a video of the performance, which ends with the women waving scarves to mimic butterflies' wings fluttering as they circle the stage.
She and the other women, she says, have found strength in each other and made a space for themselves.
That, Vásquez says, is true freedom - the kind that no one can take away.
CNN en Español's Merlin Delcid and CNN's Tierney Sneed contributed to this report.
Themen: Crime, Social Issues, Abortion, Murder