El Salvador woman freed after abortion conviction

BBC News:

A Salvadoran woman has been freed from prison more than seven years after she was convicted for having an abortion.

The 28-year-old, identified only as Lilian, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2015.

She gave birth to a girl in a public hospital in 2015, but the baby suffered health complications and died there three days later.

There is a total ban on abortion in El Salvador, which has one of the world’s strictest anti-abortion laws.

Prosecutors had accused Lilian of not taking care of the foetus during her pregnancy, and she was charged with negligence and aggravated murder.

Lilian, who has a 10-year-old daughter, has always maintained her innocence, and said she never intended to terminate her pregnancy.

“In the name of all my companions, I ask you to stop accusing and prosecuting other innocent women like me,” she said in a news conference on Wednesday.

Campaign groups who supported Lilian during her ordeal said she was freed in December, but the information has only now been made public.

They said the judge’s decision to release Lilian was based on the fact that she was in a vulnerable situation in hospital when she lost her baby.