September 28, 2025 • 50 mins
She was in labor, fainted, and woke up in handcuffs.
In El Salvador, nearly 200 women have been incarcerated in the last 26 years after having obstetric emergencies, like miscarriages and stillbirths. Maria Hinojosa and producer Monica Morales-Garcia travel to the country to speak with women who have been incarcerated under El Salvador's anti-abortion laws, some of the strictest in the world.
Through interviews, documents, and archival materials, this investigation paints a clear and disturbing picture of the women who suffer most when a country stretches the definition of abortion beyond its meaning and then bans them all without exception.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Futuro Investigators Futuro in Bastia.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
We should mention that parts of this story might be
disturbing for some of our listeners. It is July of
two thousand and seven in the capital of El Salvador.
A twenty four year old woman named Deodora Basquez is
at work alone at the end of the day. She's
nine months pregnant and she's an active labor. Without thinking,
(00:41):
Deodora grabs the phone and dials nine one one.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Someone answers.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Deodora explains her situation to the operator. She needs an ambulance.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Hurry, let's plicata embarrassta.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
She waits for help to arrive, but there is no
ambulance and the pain is getting worse. No you go,
Deo Dora calls nine one one a couple of more times, but.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Nothing.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
She waits all alone in labor. Then she gets the
urge to use the restroom. When she gets there, the
lights don't work in the dark stall. Theodora begins to
pull down her underwear ian and when her hands reach
(01:36):
her knees, she feels something from inside of her dropped,
and then everything goes black.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Yes momento.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Deo Dora loses consciousness. She's hemorrhaging now and blood begins
to pool beneath.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Her Mayo noo.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
She can't remember if it was five minutes or an hour.
All she knows is that while unconscious, someone finally arrives.
But it's not the paramedics and it's not an ambulance.
It's the police and a federal forensic team. Me So
(02:23):
when the police arrive, you are covered in blood and
your daughter as well. And the police arrive and the
first thing they do is to put handcuffs on You see,
in the haze of her consciousness, she doesn't understand what's happening.
Where are they taking her? And where is her baby?
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Majev Ami Deodora would soon find out she'd been arrested
for what authorities assumed was an abortion and the killing
of her own baby. What can a meu with anam
from Fuduro Media, It's Latino Usa.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I'm Marieno Hosa Today producer Monica Morales Garcia, and I
traveled to El Salvador, a country with one of the
strictest abortion laws in the world. We meet people supporting
the criminalization of abortion and others who have built a
movement against it. Through interviews, documents, and archival materials, Our
(03:27):
Investigation paints a clear and disturbing picture of the women
who suffer most when a country stretches the definition of
abortion to include miscarriages and stillbirds and then bans them
all without exceptions. Earlier this year, Monica and I traveled
(03:49):
to San Salvador, which is the capital of El Salvador.
It's a special trip for both of us. Last time
I was here was twenty five years ago on a
reporting trip. I'm Maria Inojsa is still a country that
is wounded and bleeding, and the women here still long
to be safe and live in peace.
Speaker 6 (04:12):
And it's my first time here in the country. My
family fled back in the eighties before I was born,
so what I know about this place comes from sad
stories passed down to me. But Landing, now, all right,
I'm going to popular for I knew I would bring
back stories of my own.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
We came to speak with women who have been incarcerated
for what doctors here called obstetric emergencies, things like a
miscarriage or not beverdida, or going into labor alone, hemorrhaging,
or having a still birth. Emergencies that can have extreme
consequences in a country under a total abortion ban.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
And though having a miscarriage or a still birth is
not technically illegal, here, medical professionals, police and judges avoid
making distinctions to steer clear of criminal prosecution for being
involved in what the government might define as an abortion.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
What does that look like in practice? Well, reports show
doctors and nurses can end up calling the police when
women are having a miscarriage.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Let that sink in.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
But before we get to our destination, let's just take
a moment for some historical contexts.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Though women have always been politically active in El Salvador,
there have been high highs and low lows. Because you see,
in the late nineteen eighties and early nineties, the radical
feminist movement here was.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Boomi Salo Sisicamnistan.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
It's a period that coincided with the country's twelve year
civil war. But by the millennium the movement was waning,
and it was during that low period of feminism when
abortion laws got.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Stricter de concepts.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
It wouldn't take long for advocates on the left to
notice that women were being incarcerated because of stillbert's and miscarriages,
and once again the feminist movement began to grow. I'll
(06:42):
never forget arriving in nineteen eighty nine during the offensive
of the leftist gorillas, and we were here to report
after the war, and now I'm back years after that.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
It'sachi.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
We make our first stop at the offices of a
feminist collective. Their offices include the AGROUPACNALI translated it's the
Citizens Group for the deep Penalization of abortion.
Speaker 6 (07:17):
They fight to get women at prison and they're working
to change the abortion landscape in Elsa, Vador altogether. The
offices of the feminist collective are in a residential part
of the city. It's a white, two story house with
large white gates wrapped in barbed wire. There's an indoor
(07:38):
courtyard that looks out to the Salvadoran sky.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Okay, so they have writing on the wall. It says
we build the feminist movement.
Speaker 6 (07:49):
The building also hosts a feminist radio station and lawyer's offices.
We sit down and wait to meet with Margarita, a
young woman who was incarcerated after unintentionally delivering her baby
in a toilet. She was released in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Berta Mango Marguerite is thirty one.
Speaker 6 (08:16):
She has brown hair that goes past her waist. She's
wearing a black kneelength skirt and a white T shirt
with a big Chanel logo. She's very curly and sweet.
You would never guess that she spent almost a decade
in prison.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
It's usque you were twenty years old.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Back in twenty thirteen, Margherita was dating an older guy.
She was convinced he was the love of her life.
But a couple of months in she got pregnant and
as soon as she told him, he disappeared. Ef Margherita says,
he's a coward. You didn't even say anything, and one
(09:02):
day he just left.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
So for months, says her belly grew. Her neighbors from
a small rural town would side eye her color seen
in midwensa shameless But this was her first pregnancy, so
it didn't matter what people said. She was going to
be a mother and she was going to enjoy it, Sola.
And when she got to eight months, she was feeling great.
(09:27):
She was about to meet her baby until a very
hot day in September twenty thirteen. Butono senti dolor. She's
at home. She goes to the bathroom, which is outdoors
basically a latrine with a septic tank that is about
ten feet deep is Margherita pushes and feels a.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Drop a stica.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So you give birth in the latrine and the umbilical
cord detached, which means that you're now bleeding.
Speaker 6 (10:03):
See her baby girl had just been born and fallen
into the septic tank. Her mom calls the police for help.
In Graciados.
Speaker 7 (10:17):
De la Fos Sectica.
Speaker 6 (10:18):
The police arrive and are able to get the baby
out of the tank. Margharita's baby is alive yo, But.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Just like in the story of Deal who you heard
from at the start of the show, the police assume
the worst that Margharita had given birth and thrown her
baby in the toilet in an attempt to kill her
own newborn. The next thing Margharita remembers is waking up
(10:51):
in the hospital, handcuffed, accused of trying to murder her baby.
El Salvador has prosecuted more than one hundred and eighty
women over the past two decades for having obstetric emergencies,
which the government labeled abortion and homicide. According to the
(11:13):
Feminist Collective they've helped at least seventy three women regain
their freedom. Margarita is one of them.
Speaker 8 (11:23):
All the women that we have represented and we are
representing right now is women from poor origins. That's the
reality of the poor woman here in the Savador.
Speaker 6 (11:34):
This is at Castellano, a social worker at the Feminist
Collective where we met Margarita.
Speaker 8 (11:40):
Is more like sending a message from the system that
they do not want anyone getting an abortion, even though
it's a miscarriage. They don't care. You're going to go
to jail.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
But why just poor women?
Speaker 8 (11:55):
That's how the system works. Unfortunately, here in the Savador,
the criminalized poverty a lot here in the country. All
the women are poor, obviously that they are criminalized.
Speaker 6 (12:06):
Artruau and others at the Citizens Organization have worked to
prove that women who are incarcerated for unintentionally losing their babies,
they're not criminals.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
They're not at fault for not perfectly completing their pregnancies.
In fact, they are victims of physically and emotionally painful
medical emergencies, and instead of getting help, they get punished
by the system.
Speaker 8 (12:32):
If you don't have access to education, if you don't
have access to a paid job. If you are in
the rural side of the country, then you will get
criminalized for miscarrying. If you can pay it an abortion,
you will go to another country to make it happen.
You avoid the law. If you have a miscarriage and
you are from a family that can pay for private doctors,
(12:56):
they won't call the police. But if you go to
a public system, they will call the police. Even though
that they don't have to call the police, they will do.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
It, and the doctor or the nurse will call the
police because they're afraid that if they don't, they could
end up in prison.
Speaker 8 (13:13):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 6 (13:19):
By the time Margharita began her prison sentence, there was
already a feminist movement in the making to protect and
defend women in her situation.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
So because of the activists, Margharita's defense was successful. Her
thirty year sentence was reduced to nine years and nine months.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
She was released in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
But despite being out for two years, Margharita has yet
to see or meet her twelve year old daughter, the
baby who was born in the latrine. Yes, I asked
Margharita if her daughter is aware that her mother is
trying to meet her. Margharita says people have turned her
(14:12):
daughter against her. Who took your daughter from you?
Speaker 6 (14:16):
With el papa?
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Mm hmm, i'l go in no memopa. I was not
expecting that.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
The man who left her, the coward as she called him,
he took her daughter and then moved out of the country.
But Margharita says she'll never stop trying to get her back.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
Now the Feminist Collective is working to reconnect them, but
it hasn't been easy. Margherita won't lose hope though, I
said oka. Reuniting with her daughter is her constant prayer
to God. She says, wherever her daughter is, she will
(15:09):
look for her.
Speaker 8 (15:10):
The woman here, their resistant the system is something that
you need to be proud obviously, and you need to
admire because they're trying to make a change that is
not welcoming on society. But they're struggling to make it
(15:31):
and they're advancing in their fight.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
We're going to take a break and when we come
back what it means for El Salvador to recognize life
from the moment of conception.
Speaker 8 (15:46):
Changing the law for a Fortunately, there is not much hope.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Stay with US notes, Hey, we're back.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
You just heard the stories of Theo and Margarita to
women who have been victimized and incarcerated because of Al
Salvador's total abortion ban. Latino USA producer Monta Moreles Garcia
and I are going to get back now to Theo's story,
but before that, the backstory of how and why El
(16:20):
Salvador ended up with one of the world's strictest abortion bands.
In nineteen ninety seven, El Salvador made all abortions illegal
with no exceptions. It was a big story and it
was covered on the Salvadoran news show in Trevista Aldia.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Back in the nineties, laf.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
It didn't matter if a pregnancy was the result of
rape or incest, and it didn't matter if the woman's
life was in danger.
Speaker 6 (16:59):
As we heard from Marduro at the Feminist Collective, the
law in Al Salvador doesn't differentiate between abortion, a miscarriage, stillbirth,
or any useterric emergency. Any termination of pregnancy could make
you a criminal and could lead to an aggravated homicide
charge with up to fifty years in prison. Yeah fifty.
(17:21):
A key actor in El Salvador's criminalization of miscarriages is
Julia Regina de cardinal.
Speaker 9 (17:27):
Ce Saclino, Peruento, no emperasos como pasa and La Borto.
Speaker 6 (17:33):
She's one of the most influential anti abortion advocates in
the country and she believes personhood begins at.
Speaker 9 (17:40):
Conception okastra constitucioso man the moment concept.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Julia Rehina's organization is called ci A Lavida or Yes
to Life, and thanks in part to her, the Salvadoran
Constitution was amended in nineteen ninety nine to recognize the
quote right to life from the moment of conception. It's
an addition to the Salvadoran Constitution that solidified the no
(18:13):
exceptions ban from the previous year. Julia Rahina is a
force in the anti abortion movement here, so of course
we needed to speak with her, but her organization declined
our in person interview request, saying we would be biased
against them. That didn't stop us from taking a chance
(18:33):
and cold calling her. You won't hear Julia Rahina during
our phone call because we didn't receive permission to record it.
Julia began her career as a singer, writing songs like
Gracies Bornibida.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
Yeah, thats.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
A song about a mother who gives up her child
for adoption so they could both have a better life.
She then founded that organization that pushed to amend the
Salvadoran constitution. As abortion became more and more politicized in
the nineteen nineties, her organization narrowed its focus on abortion
and eventually became the most prominent anti abortion group in
(19:19):
El Salvador. During our very brief chat, Uya Rahina told
me that she considers herself an activist who defends life.
She told me she's not anti anything, She's pro pro
woman and pro baby. The call lasted about seven minutes,
and halfway through Rahina questioned my use of the term
(19:42):
obstetric emergencies. I asked if we could sit down and
talk more in person, because I wanted to hear her
point of view in order to understand this story fully.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
But Huya Rahina didn't want to meet with us.
Speaker 6 (19:57):
Let's se Julia Rhina's influence and her anti abortion views
are everywhere. Maria and I heard it for ourselves from
several regular Salvadorans throughout the city, like an older woman
who firmly stated that women have no right to end
a pregnancy.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Do you believe a woman should have the right to
choose an abortion?
Speaker 6 (20:24):
A young man whose mother was raped and here I am,
he says.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Yotepo Testimona Mia mama fa your lave, Yeah, yes, so yah.
Speaker 6 (20:35):
And another woman who never told her son he was
the product of rape.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
You were raped, ellosal.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
But Huya Rahena's influence doesn't stop there. In twenty thirteen,
a pregnant woman with lupus lead it to the government
for a life saving abortion, and she was denied.
Speaker 7 (21:02):
The woman named Beatrice is carrying a twenty six year
old fetus missing large parts of the brain and skull.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Urja Rechina praised that Salvadoran ruling, saying that quote abortion
is a cruel and bloody murder in which not only
does the child die, but the mother is hurt physically
and mentally end quote. Months later, Biatris gave birth by
emergency sea section. The fetus died five hours after birth. Later,
(21:34):
this high profile case Biatris Versus and Salvador, made it
to the Inter American Court of Human Rights, and the
international court determined, among other things, that El Salvador failed
to guarantee Biatris's human rights.
Speaker 6 (21:51):
But the stories we've told you Thales and Margaritas, they
didn't want to terminate their pregnancies. There are poor women
with very little access to healthcare, and they've lost their
babies because of an obstetric emergency, and instead of getting
the medical care they needed, the government punished them, accused
them of murder, and refused to believe women. There are
(22:15):
no official numbers on how many women are in prison
for obstetric emergencies that are labeled as abortions and homicides.
What we do know is that lawyers, feminists, and women
who have spent their time incarcerated all suspect that there
is a massive undercount. We reached out to the government
(22:39):
of Elsavadad for a comment to this story, but we
never heard back.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
On our second day in Elsalvdor Monica and I went
to La Casa de Muhire's leave. It is the house
of Freedomdal is the woman who was at work when
she went into labor alone and then spent a decade
in prison. Now she's an activist and an organizer at
this house, which is an acute middle class neighborhood in
(23:14):
San Salvador. Dal now runs her own recovery house to
support formerly incarcerated women just like her. The women come
here to get therapy, to connect with jobs, and to
learn things like how to send an email. No task
is too big or too small. Dale is beaming as
(23:39):
she greets.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
Us as we sap into the recovery house. But it's
big tiles and mahogany molding that introduces us to Zulema,
who's in the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Suleima is making a cad and well, the smell of
that beef stew is reaching every corner of the house.
Speaker 6 (24:05):
I mean, Suleima is one of the founding members of
this place. And she joke said she's also the treasurer,
the theater director, the dance teacher, and the basketball coach.
She does it all.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Mama Suleima spent years in prison. Now she lives at
this recovery house with her eleven year old daughter, Jimena,
along with Jimena's pet rabbit bugs Bunny. Sulema says is
leave it is has given her life autonomy.
Speaker 6 (24:49):
We keep walking to the lush green backyard with Deal,
where we settle under the shaded patio that worded off
the Salvador and heat birds car and crow well bugs
Bunny the pet rabbit roams around the yard.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
And here Dale continues her story. What happened, in fact,
after she fainted in that dark toilet stall, all alone,
covered in blood, the moment when the police assumed and
labeled her a murderer. Yea, that's where the torture began,
(25:27):
she says. That night, Dale, barely conscious, remembers not being
taken to the hospital right away. She could hear the
officers arguing about which holding cell they were going to
take her to.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Ala Bartolina de Centennario, Ianto says, Mama.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
When they got her to the cell, the police officers
handcuffed her.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
Jo then.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I see Theo gets up.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
From her seat to show us how she pushes her
chair behind her, wrists intertwined and stretches her arms way over.
Speaker 6 (26:13):
Her head, jokes Colgar.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
They hung her from the highest point, her toes barely
touching the floor, blood pulling underneath hersa marine. She thought
she would die in that holding cell, CARU. From that
point on, all she remembers is flashes of time police
(26:38):
saying it was better if she died in the hospital
where she had been taken now Yo, And then all
she saw was bright.
Speaker 5 (26:50):
Whitea the Camaro.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Peranda journalists, TV cameras, microphones all surrounded her.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Hospital bed Para ke Matasui.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
They wanted to get their photo of the woman who
had just been arrested for killing her child, just in
time for the midday news, and that is how Theo
learned that her little girl didn't make it.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Memorio Dietmundosima.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
I felt like I had died, like the world had
fallen on top of me, and I couldn't move.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Pedro Es.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Deo was sentenced to thirty years in prison for losing
her baby when she went into labor alone with no
medical assistance, after her repeated calls to nine one one
for help went unanswered. Until this day, no one knows
why or when or how Dale's baby girl died.
Speaker 6 (28:18):
Those story is the story of so many other women
of her generation in Elsa, Vada. They grew up in
a rural part of the country in the nineties, when
the country was coming out of a civil war. The
unemployment rate among those living at the national poverty line
was sixty percent, with over half of that population earning
less than two dollars a day, and it was common
(28:41):
for children to drop out of school and help support
their families. So that's exactly what they had to do.
She was twelve years old when she took a job
as a domestic worker taking care of children not much
younger than.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Her Mirmanham Jesa and Cassano john Us.
Speaker 6 (29:06):
She was scared of her fate as a teenager if
she stayed under her parents' roof, and most likely would
mean an early marriage, a husband and children to take
care of, the same path her sisters and her mother
had followed.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
Perro Jomua Cassa me Mimi Bao.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Says, that's how Salvador and girls are raised. Their priorities
are God, husband and children in that order, and a
woman's domain they're taught is in the home. Deo's mother
was a prime example of that. She had been a
wife since she was fourteen years old.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Mimama Paso beentice Hana de suvida in trim Barasada ilando Latansia.
Speaker 6 (29:49):
Theyll did the math one time and realized that her
mother had spent twenty six years of her life pregnant
or nursing, from ages fifteen all the way to forty one.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, I said, I said, The tears up and she
tells us her mother's story. You Stodia, what choice did
her mother have as a girl.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
That's what happens to girls who come from poor families
like there, like her sisters, her mother, in a country
where a woman's worth is all wrapped up in motherhood
and being a wife and being of service, life can
just happen to you without you having any control.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
When we come back, what happens to Theo in prison
and how she became the face of an international campaign
to free incarcerated Salvadoran women.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Somebody stay with us, not bayes welcome back.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Before the Breakdale invited me and producer Monica Morales Garcia
into La Casa de Muhies Libes, the recovery house in
al Salvador for women who have been released from prison
after having a miscarriage or complications giving birth. They are
in a country with extremely strict abortion rules and where
(31:37):
the mere definition of an abortion is stretched beyond its meaning.
We're going to go back now to Theo's place, the
recovery house that she runs in the capitol.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
When you end up in prison, what happens Andre depression gaze.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
The first three years in prison, Dale fell into a
deep depressions. She just couldn't bear the thought of her
baby girl being gone. Remember, she never even got a
(32:16):
chance to see her baby ever. It all felt so surreal.
In prison, there was the target of beatings by fellow
female inmates when they found out that she had been
charged with killing her baby, despite the fact that she
hadn't done so.
Speaker 6 (32:38):
In prison, the social hierarchy of inmates reflects the anti
abortion Culturequestro massa matador, Yes, so you can be a
murderer or kidnapper and it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Tells us that if a woman comes in and the
rest of the prisoners find out that she had been
accused of murdering her baby, she would then be beaten, robbed,
and spit on her face.
Speaker 6 (33:24):
The physical and verbal abuse got so bad that she
was put in solitary confinement for three months.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Deal was then transferred to a different part of the
prison where she was actually able to take classes critical thinking,
problem solving, the Steve rus So self love classes, multiple
classes in the arts, dancing.
Speaker 6 (34:04):
And then on a random day in twenty thirteen, five
years into her sentence, she was asked to meet with
a lawyer in a private room. There were sixteen other
women in the room inside the prison. They knew some
of them. Why are you in prison, the lawyer asked, unadro, drugs, robbery,
(34:26):
homicide ISAA.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
None of them said that they were in prison because
the government had accused them of homicide, because they had
an obstetric emergency. The lawyer then looked at all seventeen
women and he said, Oh, this.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
Is tanaqui purun casore laciondo laborto.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
You're all here because of a connection to abortion, and
this meeting, theo says, would change the course of her life.
The lawyer they met with was working with that citizens
Group for the Deep Penalization of Abortion. We met them
at the feminist collective that we visited earlier in the story.
Speaker 6 (35:11):
Since two thousand and nine, they had been working a
free a handful of women who had been imprisoned, and
sometimes it worked, but other times the process took so
long that by the time they won appeals, the women
had finished serving their sentences.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
So this time the lawyer said they would try a
different strategy, one that involved those seventeen women at that
first meeting.
Speaker 6 (35:36):
The campaign was called Lassiete or the Seventeen, and it
took over the debate around the country and internationally, even
producing songs.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
Vivasi Lavarma in fier No boys sing Majo rason ni vestigason.
Speaker 6 (35:59):
Maze, songs that said I scream, I scream, I scream
for them, where is the crime? The Feminist Collective and
other international organizations now requested the pardon of the seventeen women.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Seventeen women who had been wrongfully incarcerated between nineteen ninety
nine and twenty eleven and convicted to up to forty
years in prison for reporting an obstetric emergency, a miscarriage
or a still birth to the police. The group lasd
siate would gain national and then international attention and deo
(36:45):
she would become the face of Las d SI in
the national campaign to set them free. This is a
distress signal from Amnesty International.
Speaker 6 (36:55):
Please help. My sister's name is Theodora Fasquez.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
The government of El.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Salvador has sentenced her to thirty years for having a miscarriage.
Speaker 6 (37:05):
It took four years, but in twenty seventeen, Afterdale had
served a third of her thirty year sentence, the feminist
organizations brought her case before a Salvadoran judge. Their request
Belle's freedom and a declaration of her innocence.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Little number. Surrounded by media, Dale was brought to the
court by two masked guards, one on each side. She
wore a leopard print top jeans, and her wrists were
handcuffed in front of her. In the courtroom, women from
different feminist organizations cheered her on. She smiled and hugged
(37:46):
some of them before she sat down to make her
case to the judge.
Speaker 4 (37:51):
Mon milverta can make concier milvertin bourquet so innocente fort familiato.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Deodora pleaded for her freedom, but it didn't work. The whole.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Met senate.
Speaker 6 (38:20):
The judge rejected her plea and sent the back to prison.
That felt like she had been sentenced all over again
until about a month later.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
Pres.
Speaker 6 (38:38):
After a holiday recess, the judge came back.
Speaker 9 (38:43):
For Post and Libert.
Speaker 6 (38:45):
And decided to set their free ju.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
The day she was real least everyone who supported her
was there, the feminist organizations, journalists, her own familyo Dell
(39:22):
was ready for a new start.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
She had big ideas.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
She wanted to help other women just like her, and
that's why she helped build the recovery house called Muhes
LIBZ free women, where women like her can find a
safe place after prisono ilodramas she was going to become
(39:55):
a feminist activist herself, part of that long tradition of
feminismo Salvo.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
Juna moher tivista feminista.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
And since that day that there was released, she hasn't
stopped and doesn't have plans to.
Speaker 6 (40:28):
Today, El Salvador maintains its total abortion ban with no exceptions.
Despite international bodies like the Inter American Commission on Human
Rights warning of human rights violations, its recommendations have had
zero effects so far. The same goes for the feminist
collective's constant legal battles against the state.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
And Salvadoran President Nai Bukele. He shows no signs of
changing these harsh abortion laws. In a Univision interview in
twenty twenty four with journalist Jorge Ramos, Bukele acknowledged the
women of LASiS. In that interview, Bukele almost admits, keyword almost,
(41:16):
that Lassie may have been unfairly incarcerated. Clos's translation to
what the president said is that the women were persecuted
and that the country needs to start looking at the
real problems it has pass but Buke ended by reaffirming
(41:38):
that he remains against abortion.
Speaker 6 (41:44):
The Savadoran feminists we spoke with, like Mariana Moira, say
they don't expect Elsa Vada to change its anti abortion
laws for as long as Bucele is in charge.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
What is the interest of this politic of denying due
process to women in obstetric emergencies. What is the reasoning
behind treating them as if there are gang members, murderers, terrorists,
drug dealers.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
What's the logic behind that?
Speaker 7 (42:13):
No, I mean lochico, apparentimentrosia I mocho.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Mariana Moidra told us that there's seemingly no logic as
to why the laws.
Speaker 6 (42:24):
Don't change, But when you take a closer look, she says,
there are economic and political interests that play here.
Speaker 7 (42:30):
I interre is a political economics, petras, news and conscios.
Speaker 6 (42:37):
She said. The Aultra right and the anti abortion movement
are negotiating with women's rights Commencentio Lohiko.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Now, dear listener, I told you that we would come
back to Huyar Hina and her anti abortion organization in
twenty fourteen, when the campaign of Las Yeesisiete was launched,
Juli Has organization Sia Labida joined forces with a US
based and goo. That NGO is called the Alliance Defending Freedom,
(43:11):
and it was a big player in the fall of
Roe v.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Wade. In the United States, the.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Christian Conservative movement's most influential arm is the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Speaker 6 (43:22):
Was pleased with the court's decision.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Alliance for Defending Freedom is taking this as a win.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Together, the two organizations, one from the United States one
from El Salvador called for new lawyers to join the
anti abortion cause in El Salvador in order to make
sure that the restrictions and the punishments against women stayed
in place. But there is a further connection between the
United States and El Salvador on this issue because until
(43:52):
very recently, the US was actually sending funds to Casa
Dee muheres Lebtes in order to help help women find work,
but earlier this year, the Trump administration slashed that funding
as part of the administration's major cuts to foreign a.
Speaker 6 (44:17):
Zuleimam, the cook who does it all at muheres Liires,
says the cuts made a dent in the organization. Wait
even with less funding. Feminist movements in Ensa vlor have
made positive changes. When the Salvadoran Feminist Collective first began
its legal battles trying to free women like they al
(44:39):
from prison, feminists relied heavily on international organizations, but today
the group has academic, legal and medical allies not just abroad,
but in its own country. And as we sing with THELL,
victims of the total abortion ban are getting out of
prison and they're creating organizations like Muhetesludis to provide safe
(45:03):
places for women just like them.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
It is our last full night in El Salvador, and well, yes,
both Monica and I are feeling quite emotional, and we
feel like we needed to find a little bit more
hope in this beautiful country. So we decided to invite
THEO and Suleima and her daughter but not the pet Rabbit,
(45:40):
to join us for mariscos in La Costa, fresh seafood
with a sunset on the coast.
Speaker 6 (45:48):
We drive half an hour from the capitol and step
into the warm Pacific Ocean. THEO reminds me that it's
the same ocean, the same country where my roots are,
and for a moment, I feel gratitude. It's about six
(46:08):
pm and the sun is about to set.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Wow, get your relice, Simoo.
Speaker 8 (46:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Tale is really emotional. It was more than just the
beauty of this sunset.
Speaker 6 (46:26):
The last time she experienced the sunsetting on the ocean
was in nineteen ninety seven. It's almost thirty years. The
sunset is beautiful. It's the kind of sunset that reminds
you of how small you are in this world.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
Colors in clear Haperefectos de Lo.
Speaker 6 (46:55):
Mass It's orange, yellow, bread and purple. Sitting above the
beach horizon. It looked like it could be infinite.
Speaker 5 (47:12):
There's said.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
This is what life is all about. They all says
that's just the.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Emotion just looking at the ocean.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Bus piece a lot of peace.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Because they all says after a sunset, there is always
a sunrise. This episode was reported by Monica Morales Garcia
(48:25):
and myself.
Speaker 3 (48:26):
It was produced by Monica.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
It was edited by Andrea Lopez Gruzzado and our managing
editor Fernanda Echavari. It was mixed by Gabriel Abias. Fact
checking for this episode by Roxana Aguire. Special thanks to
Volcanic Studios and our fixer in San Salvador journalist Ivan Manzano.
This episode is part of Futuro Investigates. The Latino USA
(48:53):
team also includes Julia Caruso, Jessica Elis, Victoria Strada, Renaldo
LEANOZ Junior, Stephanie Lebau, Luis Luna Gloni mad Marquez, Julieta Marinelli,
JJ Carubin, Adriana Rodriguez and Nancy Trujillo. Benileei Ramirez and
I are co executive producers and I'm your host Marino Josa.
(49:14):
Latino USA is part of Iheart's micu Dura podcast network.
Executive producers at iHeart are Leo Gomez and Arlene Santana.
Dear listener, join us again on our next episode. In
the meantime, We'll see you on social media. Luchas gracias,
estella proxima in Ayes.
Speaker 6 (49:35):
Funding for Latino USA is coverage of a culture of
health is made possible in part by a grant from
the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Latino USA is made possible
in part by the Levi Strauss Foundation, Outfitting Movements and
leaders fighting for a more just and abundant world, and
Skyline Foundation
Futuro Investigators Futuro in Bastia.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
We should mention that parts of this story might be
disturbing for some of our listeners. It is July of
two thousand and seven in the capital of El Salvador.
A twenty four year old woman named Deodora Basquez is
at work alone at the end of the day. She's
nine months pregnant and she's an active labor. Without thinking,
(00:41):
Deodora grabs the phone and dials nine one one.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Someone answers.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Deodora explains her situation to the operator. She needs an ambulance.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Hurry, let's plicata embarrassta.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
She waits for help to arrive, but there is no
ambulance and the pain is getting worse. No you go,
Deo Dora calls nine one one a couple of more times, but.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Nothing.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
She waits all alone in labor. Then she gets the
urge to use the restroom. When she gets there, the
lights don't work in the dark stall. Theodora begins to
pull down her underwear ian and when her hands reach
(01:36):
her knees, she feels something from inside of her dropped,
and then everything goes black.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Yes momento.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Deo Dora loses consciousness. She's hemorrhaging now and blood begins
to pool beneath.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Her Mayo noo.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
She can't remember if it was five minutes or an hour.
All she knows is that while unconscious, someone finally arrives.
But it's not the paramedics and it's not an ambulance.
It's the police and a federal forensic team. Me So
(02:23):
when the police arrive, you are covered in blood and
your daughter as well. And the police arrive and the
first thing they do is to put handcuffs on You see,
in the haze of her consciousness, she doesn't understand what's happening.
Where are they taking her? And where is her baby?
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Majev Ami Deodora would soon find out she'd been arrested
for what authorities assumed was an abortion and the killing
of her own baby. What can a meu with anam
from Fuduro Media, It's Latino Usa.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I'm Marieno Hosa Today producer Monica Morales Garcia, and I
traveled to El Salvador, a country with one of the
strictest abortion laws in the world. We meet people supporting
the criminalization of abortion and others who have built a
movement against it. Through interviews, documents, and archival materials, Our
(03:27):
Investigation paints a clear and disturbing picture of the women
who suffer most when a country stretches the definition of
abortion to include miscarriages and stillbirds and then bans them
all without exceptions. Earlier this year, Monica and I traveled
(03:49):
to San Salvador, which is the capital of El Salvador.
It's a special trip for both of us. Last time
I was here was twenty five years ago on a
reporting trip. I'm Maria Inojsa is still a country that
is wounded and bleeding, and the women here still long
to be safe and live in peace.
Speaker 6 (04:12):
And it's my first time here in the country. My
family fled back in the eighties before I was born,
so what I know about this place comes from sad
stories passed down to me. But Landing, now, all right,
I'm going to popular for I knew I would bring
back stories of my own.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
We came to speak with women who have been incarcerated
for what doctors here called obstetric emergencies, things like a
miscarriage or not beverdida, or going into labor alone, hemorrhaging,
or having a still birth. Emergencies that can have extreme
consequences in a country under a total abortion ban.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
And though having a miscarriage or a still birth is
not technically illegal, here, medical professionals, police and judges avoid
making distinctions to steer clear of criminal prosecution for being
involved in what the government might define as an abortion.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
What does that look like in practice? Well, reports show
doctors and nurses can end up calling the police when
women are having a miscarriage.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Let that sink in.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
But before we get to our destination, let's just take
a moment for some historical contexts.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Though women have always been politically active in El Salvador,
there have been high highs and low lows. Because you see,
in the late nineteen eighties and early nineties, the radical
feminist movement here was.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Boomi Salo Sisicamnistan.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
It's a period that coincided with the country's twelve year
civil war. But by the millennium the movement was waning,
and it was during that low period of feminism when
abortion laws got.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Stricter de concepts.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
It wouldn't take long for advocates on the left to
notice that women were being incarcerated because of stillbert's and miscarriages,
and once again the feminist movement began to grow. I'll
(06:42):
never forget arriving in nineteen eighty nine during the offensive
of the leftist gorillas, and we were here to report
after the war, and now I'm back years after that.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
It'sachi.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
We make our first stop at the offices of a
feminist collective. Their offices include the AGROUPACNALI translated it's the
Citizens Group for the deep Penalization of abortion.
Speaker 6 (07:17):
They fight to get women at prison and they're working
to change the abortion landscape in Elsa, Vador altogether. The
offices of the feminist collective are in a residential part
of the city. It's a white, two story house with
large white gates wrapped in barbed wire. There's an indoor
(07:38):
courtyard that looks out to the Salvadoran sky.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Okay, so they have writing on the wall. It says
we build the feminist movement.
Speaker 6 (07:49):
The building also hosts a feminist radio station and lawyer's offices.
We sit down and wait to meet with Margarita, a
young woman who was incarcerated after unintentionally delivering her baby
in a toilet. She was released in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Berta Mango Marguerite is thirty one.
Speaker 6 (08:16):
She has brown hair that goes past her waist. She's
wearing a black kneelength skirt and a white T shirt
with a big Chanel logo. She's very curly and sweet.
You would never guess that she spent almost a decade
in prison.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
It's usque you were twenty years old.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Back in twenty thirteen, Margherita was dating an older guy.
She was convinced he was the love of her life.
But a couple of months in she got pregnant and
as soon as she told him, he disappeared. Ef Margherita says,
he's a coward. You didn't even say anything, and one
(09:02):
day he just left.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
So for months, says her belly grew. Her neighbors from
a small rural town would side eye her color seen
in midwensa shameless But this was her first pregnancy, so
it didn't matter what people said. She was going to
be a mother and she was going to enjoy it, Sola.
And when she got to eight months, she was feeling great.
(09:27):
She was about to meet her baby until a very
hot day in September twenty thirteen. Butono senti dolor. She's
at home. She goes to the bathroom, which is outdoors
basically a latrine with a septic tank that is about
ten feet deep is Margherita pushes and feels a.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Drop a stica.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So you give birth in the latrine and the umbilical
cord detached, which means that you're now bleeding.
Speaker 6 (10:03):
See her baby girl had just been born and fallen
into the septic tank. Her mom calls the police for help.
In Graciados.
Speaker 7 (10:17):
De la Fos Sectica.
Speaker 6 (10:18):
The police arrive and are able to get the baby
out of the tank. Margharita's baby is alive yo, But.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Just like in the story of Deal who you heard
from at the start of the show, the police assume
the worst that Margharita had given birth and thrown her
baby in the toilet in an attempt to kill her
own newborn. The next thing Margharita remembers is waking up
(10:51):
in the hospital, handcuffed, accused of trying to murder her baby.
El Salvador has prosecuted more than one hundred and eighty
women over the past two decades for having obstetric emergencies,
which the government labeled abortion and homicide. According to the
(11:13):
Feminist Collective they've helped at least seventy three women regain
their freedom. Margarita is one of them.
Speaker 8 (11:23):
All the women that we have represented and we are
representing right now is women from poor origins. That's the
reality of the poor woman here in the Savador.
Speaker 6 (11:34):
This is at Castellano, a social worker at the Feminist
Collective where we met Margarita.
Speaker 8 (11:40):
Is more like sending a message from the system that
they do not want anyone getting an abortion, even though
it's a miscarriage. They don't care. You're going to go
to jail.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
But why just poor women?
Speaker 8 (11:55):
That's how the system works. Unfortunately, here in the Savador,
the criminalized poverty a lot here in the country. All
the women are poor, obviously that they are criminalized.
Speaker 6 (12:06):
Artruau and others at the Citizens Organization have worked to
prove that women who are incarcerated for unintentionally losing their babies,
they're not criminals.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
They're not at fault for not perfectly completing their pregnancies.
In fact, they are victims of physically and emotionally painful
medical emergencies, and instead of getting help, they get punished
by the system.
Speaker 8 (12:32):
If you don't have access to education, if you don't
have access to a paid job. If you are in
the rural side of the country, then you will get
criminalized for miscarrying. If you can pay it an abortion,
you will go to another country to make it happen.
You avoid the law. If you have a miscarriage and
you are from a family that can pay for private doctors,
(12:56):
they won't call the police. But if you go to
a public system, they will call the police. Even though
that they don't have to call the police, they will do.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
It, and the doctor or the nurse will call the
police because they're afraid that if they don't, they could
end up in prison.
Speaker 8 (13:13):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 6 (13:19):
By the time Margharita began her prison sentence, there was
already a feminist movement in the making to protect and
defend women in her situation.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
So because of the activists, Margharita's defense was successful. Her
thirty year sentence was reduced to nine years and nine months.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
She was released in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
But despite being out for two years, Margharita has yet
to see or meet her twelve year old daughter, the
baby who was born in the latrine. Yes, I asked
Margharita if her daughter is aware that her mother is
trying to meet her. Margharita says people have turned her
(14:12):
daughter against her. Who took your daughter from you?
Speaker 6 (14:16):
With el papa?
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Mm hmm, i'l go in no memopa. I was not
expecting that.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
The man who left her, the coward as she called him,
he took her daughter and then moved out of the country.
But Margharita says she'll never stop trying to get her back.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
Now the Feminist Collective is working to reconnect them, but
it hasn't been easy. Margherita won't lose hope though, I
said oka. Reuniting with her daughter is her constant prayer
to God. She says, wherever her daughter is, she will
(15:09):
look for her.
Speaker 8 (15:10):
The woman here, their resistant the system is something that
you need to be proud obviously, and you need to
admire because they're trying to make a change that is
not welcoming on society. But they're struggling to make it
(15:31):
and they're advancing in their fight.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
We're going to take a break and when we come
back what it means for El Salvador to recognize life
from the moment of conception.
Speaker 8 (15:46):
Changing the law for a Fortunately, there is not much hope.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Stay with US notes, Hey, we're back.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
You just heard the stories of Theo and Margarita to
women who have been victimized and incarcerated because of Al
Salvador's total abortion ban. Latino USA producer Monta Moreles Garcia
and I are going to get back now to Theo's story,
but before that, the backstory of how and why El
(16:20):
Salvador ended up with one of the world's strictest abortion bands.
In nineteen ninety seven, El Salvador made all abortions illegal
with no exceptions. It was a big story and it
was covered on the Salvadoran news show in Trevista Aldia.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Back in the nineties, laf.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
It didn't matter if a pregnancy was the result of
rape or incest, and it didn't matter if the woman's
life was in danger.
Speaker 6 (16:59):
As we heard from Marduro at the Feminist Collective, the
law in Al Salvador doesn't differentiate between abortion, a miscarriage, stillbirth,
or any useterric emergency. Any termination of pregnancy could make
you a criminal and could lead to an aggravated homicide
charge with up to fifty years in prison. Yeah fifty.
(17:21):
A key actor in El Salvador's criminalization of miscarriages is
Julia Regina de cardinal.
Speaker 9 (17:27):
Ce Saclino, Peruento, no emperasos como pasa and La Borto.
Speaker 6 (17:33):
She's one of the most influential anti abortion advocates in
the country and she believes personhood begins at.
Speaker 9 (17:40):
Conception okastra constitucioso man the moment concept.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Julia Rehina's organization is called ci A Lavida or Yes
to Life, and thanks in part to her, the Salvadoran
Constitution was amended in nineteen ninety nine to recognize the
quote right to life from the moment of conception. It's
an addition to the Salvadoran Constitution that solidified the no
(18:13):
exceptions ban from the previous year. Julia Rahina is a
force in the anti abortion movement here, so of course
we needed to speak with her, but her organization declined
our in person interview request, saying we would be biased
against them. That didn't stop us from taking a chance
(18:33):
and cold calling her. You won't hear Julia Rahina during
our phone call because we didn't receive permission to record it.
Julia began her career as a singer, writing songs like
Gracies Bornibida.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
Yeah, thats.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
A song about a mother who gives up her child
for adoption so they could both have a better life.
She then founded that organization that pushed to amend the
Salvadoran constitution. As abortion became more and more politicized in
the nineteen nineties, her organization narrowed its focus on abortion
and eventually became the most prominent anti abortion group in
(19:19):
El Salvador. During our very brief chat, Uya Rahina told
me that she considers herself an activist who defends life.
She told me she's not anti anything, She's pro pro
woman and pro baby. The call lasted about seven minutes,
and halfway through Rahina questioned my use of the term
(19:42):
obstetric emergencies. I asked if we could sit down and
talk more in person, because I wanted to hear her
point of view in order to understand this story fully.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
But Huya Rahina didn't want to meet with us.
Speaker 6 (19:57):
Let's se Julia Rhina's influence and her anti abortion views
are everywhere. Maria and I heard it for ourselves from
several regular Salvadorans throughout the city, like an older woman
who firmly stated that women have no right to end
a pregnancy.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Do you believe a woman should have the right to
choose an abortion?
Speaker 6 (20:24):
A young man whose mother was raped and here I am,
he says.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Yotepo Testimona Mia mama fa your lave, Yeah, yes, so yah.
Speaker 6 (20:35):
And another woman who never told her son he was
the product of rape.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
You were raped, ellosal.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
But Huya Rahena's influence doesn't stop there. In twenty thirteen,
a pregnant woman with lupus lead it to the government
for a life saving abortion, and she was denied.
Speaker 7 (21:02):
The woman named Beatrice is carrying a twenty six year
old fetus missing large parts of the brain and skull.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Urja Rechina praised that Salvadoran ruling, saying that quote abortion
is a cruel and bloody murder in which not only
does the child die, but the mother is hurt physically
and mentally end quote. Months later, Biatris gave birth by
emergency sea section. The fetus died five hours after birth. Later,
(21:34):
this high profile case Biatris Versus and Salvador, made it
to the Inter American Court of Human Rights, and the
international court determined, among other things, that El Salvador failed
to guarantee Biatris's human rights.
Speaker 6 (21:51):
But the stories we've told you Thales and Margaritas, they
didn't want to terminate their pregnancies. There are poor women
with very little access to healthcare, and they've lost their
babies because of an obstetric emergency, and instead of getting
the medical care they needed, the government punished them, accused
them of murder, and refused to believe women. There are
(22:15):
no official numbers on how many women are in prison
for obstetric emergencies that are labeled as abortions and homicides.
What we do know is that lawyers, feminists, and women
who have spent their time incarcerated all suspect that there
is a massive undercount. We reached out to the government
(22:39):
of Elsavadad for a comment to this story, but we
never heard back.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
On our second day in Elsalvdor Monica and I went
to La Casa de Muhire's leave. It is the house
of Freedomdal is the woman who was at work when
she went into labor alone and then spent a decade
in prison. Now she's an activist and an organizer at
this house, which is an acute middle class neighborhood in
(23:14):
San Salvador. Dal now runs her own recovery house to
support formerly incarcerated women just like her. The women come
here to get therapy, to connect with jobs, and to
learn things like how to send an email. No task
is too big or too small. Dale is beaming as
(23:39):
she greets.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
Us as we sap into the recovery house. But it's
big tiles and mahogany molding that introduces us to Zulema,
who's in the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Suleima is making a cad and well, the smell of
that beef stew is reaching every corner of the house.
Speaker 6 (24:05):
I mean, Suleima is one of the founding members of
this place. And she joke said she's also the treasurer,
the theater director, the dance teacher, and the basketball coach.
She does it all.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Mama Suleima spent years in prison. Now she lives at
this recovery house with her eleven year old daughter, Jimena,
along with Jimena's pet rabbit bugs Bunny. Sulema says is
leave it is has given her life autonomy.
Speaker 6 (24:49):
We keep walking to the lush green backyard with Deal,
where we settle under the shaded patio that worded off
the Salvador and heat birds car and crow well bugs
Bunny the pet rabbit roams around the yard.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
And here Dale continues her story. What happened, in fact,
after she fainted in that dark toilet stall, all alone,
covered in blood, the moment when the police assumed and
labeled her a murderer. Yea, that's where the torture began,
(25:27):
she says. That night, Dale, barely conscious, remembers not being
taken to the hospital right away. She could hear the
officers arguing about which holding cell they were going to
take her to.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Ala Bartolina de Centennario, Ianto says, Mama.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
When they got her to the cell, the police officers
handcuffed her.
Speaker 5 (25:59):
Jo then.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
I see Theo gets up.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
From her seat to show us how she pushes her
chair behind her, wrists intertwined and stretches her arms way over.
Speaker 6 (26:13):
Her head, jokes Colgar.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
They hung her from the highest point, her toes barely
touching the floor, blood pulling underneath hersa marine. She thought
she would die in that holding cell, CARU. From that
point on, all she remembers is flashes of time police
(26:38):
saying it was better if she died in the hospital
where she had been taken now Yo, And then all
she saw was bright.
Speaker 5 (26:50):
Whitea the Camaro.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Peranda journalists, TV cameras, microphones all surrounded her.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Hospital bed Para ke Matasui.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
They wanted to get their photo of the woman who
had just been arrested for killing her child, just in
time for the midday news, and that is how Theo
learned that her little girl didn't make it.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Memorio Dietmundosima.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
I felt like I had died, like the world had
fallen on top of me, and I couldn't move.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Pedro Es.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Deo was sentenced to thirty years in prison for losing
her baby when she went into labor alone with no
medical assistance, after her repeated calls to nine one one
for help went unanswered. Until this day, no one knows
why or when or how Dale's baby girl died.
Speaker 6 (28:18):
Those story is the story of so many other women
of her generation in Elsa, Vada. They grew up in
a rural part of the country in the nineties, when
the country was coming out of a civil war. The
unemployment rate among those living at the national poverty line
was sixty percent, with over half of that population earning
less than two dollars a day, and it was common
(28:41):
for children to drop out of school and help support
their families. So that's exactly what they had to do.
She was twelve years old when she took a job
as a domestic worker taking care of children not much
younger than.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Her Mirmanham Jesa and Cassano john Us.
Speaker 6 (29:06):
She was scared of her fate as a teenager if
she stayed under her parents' roof, and most likely would
mean an early marriage, a husband and children to take
care of, the same path her sisters and her mother
had followed.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
Perro Jomua Cassa me Mimi Bao.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Says, that's how Salvador and girls are raised. Their priorities
are God, husband and children in that order, and a
woman's domain they're taught is in the home. Deo's mother
was a prime example of that. She had been a
wife since she was fourteen years old.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Mimama Paso beentice Hana de suvida in trim Barasada ilando Latansia.
Speaker 6 (29:49):
Theyll did the math one time and realized that her
mother had spent twenty six years of her life pregnant
or nursing, from ages fifteen all the way to forty one.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, I said, I said, The tears up and she
tells us her mother's story. You Stodia, what choice did
her mother have as a girl.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
That's what happens to girls who come from poor families
like there, like her sisters, her mother, in a country
where a woman's worth is all wrapped up in motherhood
and being a wife and being of service, life can
just happen to you without you having any control.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
When we come back, what happens to Theo in prison
and how she became the face of an international campaign
to free incarcerated Salvadoran women.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Somebody stay with us, not bayes welcome back.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Before the Breakdale invited me and producer Monica Morales Garcia
into La Casa de Muhies Libes, the recovery house in
al Salvador for women who have been released from prison
after having a miscarriage or complications giving birth. They are
in a country with extremely strict abortion rules and where
(31:37):
the mere definition of an abortion is stretched beyond its meaning.
We're going to go back now to Theo's place, the
recovery house that she runs in the capitol.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
When you end up in prison, what happens Andre depression gaze.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
The first three years in prison, Dale fell into a
deep depressions. She just couldn't bear the thought of her
baby girl being gone. Remember, she never even got a
(32:16):
chance to see her baby ever. It all felt so surreal.
In prison, there was the target of beatings by fellow
female inmates when they found out that she had been
charged with killing her baby, despite the fact that she
hadn't done so.
Speaker 6 (32:38):
In prison, the social hierarchy of inmates reflects the anti
abortion Culturequestro massa matador, Yes, so you can be a
murderer or kidnapper and it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Tells us that if a woman comes in and the
rest of the prisoners find out that she had been
accused of murdering her baby, she would then be beaten, robbed,
and spit on her face.
Speaker 6 (33:24):
The physical and verbal abuse got so bad that she
was put in solitary confinement for three months.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Deal was then transferred to a different part of the
prison where she was actually able to take classes critical thinking,
problem solving, the Steve rus So self love classes, multiple
classes in the arts, dancing.
Speaker 6 (34:04):
And then on a random day in twenty thirteen, five
years into her sentence, she was asked to meet with
a lawyer in a private room. There were sixteen other
women in the room inside the prison. They knew some
of them. Why are you in prison, the lawyer asked, unadro, drugs, robbery,
(34:26):
homicide ISAA.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
None of them said that they were in prison because
the government had accused them of homicide, because they had
an obstetric emergency. The lawyer then looked at all seventeen
women and he said, Oh, this.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
Is tanaqui purun casore laciondo laborto.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
You're all here because of a connection to abortion, and
this meeting, theo says, would change the course of her life.
The lawyer they met with was working with that citizens
Group for the Deep Penalization of Abortion. We met them
at the feminist collective that we visited earlier in the story.
Speaker 6 (35:11):
Since two thousand and nine, they had been working a
free a handful of women who had been imprisoned, and
sometimes it worked, but other times the process took so
long that by the time they won appeals, the women
had finished serving their sentences.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
So this time the lawyer said they would try a
different strategy, one that involved those seventeen women at that
first meeting.
Speaker 6 (35:36):
The campaign was called Lassiete or the Seventeen, and it
took over the debate around the country and internationally, even
producing songs.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
Vivasi Lavarma in fier No boys sing Majo rason ni vestigason.
Speaker 6 (35:59):
Maze, songs that said I scream, I scream, I scream
for them, where is the crime? The Feminist Collective and
other international organizations now requested the pardon of the seventeen women.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Seventeen women who had been wrongfully incarcerated between nineteen ninety
nine and twenty eleven and convicted to up to forty
years in prison for reporting an obstetric emergency, a miscarriage
or a still birth to the police. The group lasd
siate would gain national and then international attention and deo
(36:45):
she would become the face of Las d SI in
the national campaign to set them free. This is a
distress signal from Amnesty International.
Speaker 6 (36:55):
Please help. My sister's name is Theodora Fasquez.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
The government of El.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Salvador has sentenced her to thirty years for having a miscarriage.
Speaker 6 (37:05):
It took four years, but in twenty seventeen, Afterdale had
served a third of her thirty year sentence, the feminist
organizations brought her case before a Salvadoran judge. Their request
Belle's freedom and a declaration of her innocence.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Little number. Surrounded by media, Dale was brought to the
court by two masked guards, one on each side. She
wore a leopard print top jeans, and her wrists were
handcuffed in front of her. In the courtroom, women from
different feminist organizations cheered her on. She smiled and hugged
(37:46):
some of them before she sat down to make her
case to the judge.
Speaker 4 (37:51):
Mon milverta can make concier milvertin bourquet so innocente fort familiato.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Deodora pleaded for her freedom, but it didn't work. The whole.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Met senate.
Speaker 6 (38:20):
The judge rejected her plea and sent the back to prison.
That felt like she had been sentenced all over again
until about a month later.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
Pres.
Speaker 6 (38:38):
After a holiday recess, the judge came back.
Speaker 9 (38:43):
For Post and Libert.
Speaker 6 (38:45):
And decided to set their free ju.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
The day she was real least everyone who supported her
was there, the feminist organizations, journalists, her own familyo Dell
(39:22):
was ready for a new start.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
She had big ideas.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
She wanted to help other women just like her, and
that's why she helped build the recovery house called Muhes
LIBZ free women, where women like her can find a
safe place after prisono ilodramas she was going to become
(39:55):
a feminist activist herself, part of that long tradition of
feminismo Salvo.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
Juna moher tivista feminista.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
And since that day that there was released, she hasn't
stopped and doesn't have plans to.
Speaker 6 (40:28):
Today, El Salvador maintains its total abortion ban with no exceptions.
Despite international bodies like the Inter American Commission on Human
Rights warning of human rights violations, its recommendations have had
zero effects so far. The same goes for the feminist
collective's constant legal battles against the state.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
And Salvadoran President Nai Bukele. He shows no signs of
changing these harsh abortion laws. In a Univision interview in
twenty twenty four with journalist Jorge Ramos, Bukele acknowledged the
women of LASiS. In that interview, Bukele almost admits, keyword almost,
(41:16):
that Lassie may have been unfairly incarcerated. Clos's translation to
what the president said is that the women were persecuted
and that the country needs to start looking at the
real problems it has pass but Buke ended by reaffirming
(41:38):
that he remains against abortion.
Speaker 6 (41:44):
The Savadoran feminists we spoke with, like Mariana Moira, say
they don't expect Elsa Vada to change its anti abortion
laws for as long as Bucele is in charge.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
What is the interest of this politic of denying due
process to women in obstetric emergencies. What is the reasoning
behind treating them as if there are gang members, murderers, terrorists,
drug dealers.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
What's the logic behind that?
Speaker 7 (42:13):
No, I mean lochico, apparentimentrosia I mocho.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Mariana Moidra told us that there's seemingly no logic as
to why the laws.
Speaker 6 (42:24):
Don't change, But when you take a closer look, she says,
there are economic and political interests that play here.
Speaker 7 (42:30):
I interre is a political economics, petras, news and conscios.
Speaker 6 (42:37):
She said. The Aultra right and the anti abortion movement
are negotiating with women's rights Commencentio Lohiko.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Now, dear listener, I told you that we would come
back to Huyar Hina and her anti abortion organization in
twenty fourteen, when the campaign of Las Yeesisiete was launched,
Juli Has organization Sia Labida joined forces with a US
based and goo. That NGO is called the Alliance Defending Freedom,
(43:11):
and it was a big player in the fall of
Roe v.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
Wade. In the United States, the.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Christian Conservative movement's most influential arm is the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Speaker 6 (43:22):
Was pleased with the court's decision.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Alliance for Defending Freedom is taking this as a win.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Together, the two organizations, one from the United States one
from El Salvador called for new lawyers to join the
anti abortion cause in El Salvador in order to make
sure that the restrictions and the punishments against women stayed
in place. But there is a further connection between the
United States and El Salvador on this issue because until
(43:52):
very recently, the US was actually sending funds to Casa
Dee muheres Lebtes in order to help help women find work,
but earlier this year, the Trump administration slashed that funding
as part of the administration's major cuts to foreign a.
Speaker 6 (44:17):
Zuleimam, the cook who does it all at muheres Liires,
says the cuts made a dent in the organization. Wait
even with less funding. Feminist movements in Ensa vlor have
made positive changes. When the Salvadoran Feminist Collective first began
its legal battles trying to free women like they al
(44:39):
from prison, feminists relied heavily on international organizations, but today
the group has academic, legal and medical allies not just abroad,
but in its own country. And as we sing with THELL,
victims of the total abortion ban are getting out of
prison and they're creating organizations like Muhetesludis to provide safe
(45:03):
places for women just like them.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
It is our last full night in El Salvador, and well, yes,
both Monica and I are feeling quite emotional, and we
feel like we needed to find a little bit more
hope in this beautiful country. So we decided to invite
THEO and Suleima and her daughter but not the pet Rabbit,
(45:40):
to join us for mariscos in La Costa, fresh seafood
with a sunset on the coast.
Speaker 6 (45:48):
We drive half an hour from the capitol and step
into the warm Pacific Ocean. THEO reminds me that it's
the same ocean, the same country where my roots are,
and for a moment, I feel gratitude. It's about six
(46:08):
pm and the sun is about to set.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Wow, get your relice, Simoo.
Speaker 8 (46:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Tale is really emotional. It was more than just the
beauty of this sunset.
Speaker 6 (46:26):
The last time she experienced the sunsetting on the ocean
was in nineteen ninety seven. It's almost thirty years. The
sunset is beautiful. It's the kind of sunset that reminds
you of how small you are in this world.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
Colors in clear Haperefectos de Lo.
Speaker 6 (46:55):
Mass It's orange, yellow, bread and purple. Sitting above the
beach horizon. It looked like it could be infinite.
Speaker 5 (47:12):
There's said.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
This is what life is all about. They all says
that's just the.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Emotion just looking at the ocean.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Bus piece a lot of peace.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Because they all says after a sunset, there is always
a sunrise. This episode was reported by Monica Morales Garcia
(48:25):
and myself.
Speaker 3 (48:26):
It was produced by Monica.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
It was edited by Andrea Lopez Gruzzado and our managing
editor Fernanda Echavari. It was mixed by Gabriel Abias. Fact
checking for this episode by Roxana Aguire. Special thanks to
Volcanic Studios and our fixer in San Salvador journalist Ivan Manzano.
This episode is part of Futuro Investigates. The Latino USA
(48:53):
team also includes Julia Caruso, Jessica Elis, Victoria Strada, Renaldo
LEANOZ Junior, Stephanie Lebau, Luis Luna Gloni mad Marquez, Julieta Marinelli,
JJ Carubin, Adriana Rodriguez and Nancy Trujillo. Benileei Ramirez and
I are co executive producers and I'm your host Marino Josa.
(49:14):
Latino USA is part of Iheart's micu Dura podcast network.
Executive producers at iHeart are Leo Gomez and Arlene Santana.
Dear listener, join us again on our next episode. In
the meantime, We'll see you on social media. Luchas gracias,
estella proxima in Ayes.
Speaker 6 (49:35):
Funding for Latino USA is coverage of a culture of
health is made possible in part by a grant from
the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Latino USA is made possible
in part by the Levi Strauss Foundation, Outfitting Movements and
leaders fighting for a more just and abundant world, and
Skyline Foundation
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