Suffer the children
Latin America fails to protect the rights and lives of its teenage girls
WHEN Pope Francis visits Paraguay on July 10th, he will find a controversy that he might prefer to ignore. A ten-year-old Paraguayan girl is currently 26 weeks pregnant after having been raped by her stepfather. Some six weeks ago she was taken to a hospital by her mother, who asked that she be allowed an abortion. But the Paraguayan authorities, backed by the Catholic church, not only refused her plea; they also arrested the mother as an alleged accomplice in her daughter’s abuse, although she reported the crime last year.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “Suffer the children”
From the May 30th 2015 edition
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