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Bolivia: Condemned to 20 years in prison for trying to leave her husband

By Helen Álvarez V.

La Paz, November.– Rita Castrillo is temporarily living in a “small village”, together with many other women and children. She hopes to get back home soon and see her two sons, her daughter, her grandson and her brothers.

This has actually been her dream since October 27, 2006, when she was arrested and accused of trying to kill her husband Edgar Gutiérrez Mercado, otherwise known as “Chichote”.

Last September 17, the Court of Higher Jurisdiction in La Paz sentenced her to 20 years imprisonment at the Women’s Guidance Center in Obrajes.

The “small village” consists of many precarious rooms along a corridor where children run and play.

As it is a visiting day today, Rita is accompanied by her female cousin and her niece. She does not look hopeless or resigned. She is always smiling and upright. She is sure that justice will be done.

She has filed a suit against attorney Aleyda Camacho, who was involved in influence trafficking and is currently being prosecuted.

One of the police investigators was willing to testify that he had seen no evidence, but the judge did not allow him to do so.

A dangerous love

Rita’s love story began three years ago, when she met "Chichote”, a man who had got rich in the 1970s, during Hugo Bánzer's dictatorship. He happened to be awarded important construction works and was even appointed Bolivia’s ambassador to Spain.

"He was very charming. I fell in love with him one year after we met, she recalled. She introduced him to her older, disabled brothers. He used to treat them tenderly", she added.

On November 11, 2005, they got married. Her daughter (aged 25), her sons (aged 23 and 18) and most of her family were not very pleased. "They saw what I failed to see", she stressed.

Gutiérrez jokingly told her shortly after marriage that he would beat her “if she did not behave”. His sons began to talk about poisoning charges. He had accused his first wife, his daughter-in-law and his half brother of trying to poison him once.

He changed completely. He was always ill-humored and liked insulting. He slapped her on two occasions. Although he suffered from diabetes, he used to drink a lot.

In February 2006, Rita went to stay with her daughter for a month. She had given birth to Rita’s first grandson. The situation got worse after she returned.

When she woke up one morning, all her body was painful and she had her breast and inner side of thighs bruised.

She recalled that he had given her some sleeping pills because she was suffering from insomnia. Next time, she pretended she had taken the pills and lived a terrifying experience.

After that, he tried to make it sure that she had fallen asleep, then grabbed her by her hair and undressed her. He went to the bathroom and brought some pliers. Anticipating his plan, Rita pushed him against the wall and ran away. This was six months after marriage.

"I realized I had married a pervert. I did what I had criticized so much: try to hide my suffering from my family", she noted.

She later learnt that there were some charges against her and appeared in court to find out.

Gutiérrez had accused her of having tried to poison him. His only witnesses were two stewards who had for years been working for him.

When the judge pronounced the verdict, her family and friends began to cry. She did not burst into tears, however. And she has remained positive and resolute.

Bolivia: Humanizing childbirth

By Liliana Aguirre

La Paz, November.– Now that you have to give birth, you are complaining. You should have thought about it before you opened your legs. This is one of the denigrating expressions used against Bolivian indigenous women over delivery.

The statement was made by Alejandra Álvarez, a social communication specialist and member of the Bolivian Network to Humanize Childbirth. Many women ignore their health and reproductive rights, she added.

The network was established shortly after an international meeting in Brazil in November 2000. The aim was to deal with acts of violence against women at the time of delivery. Participants in the event later set up organizations all over Latin America, the Caribbean and other parts of the world.

Excessive violence at a difficult time

"The local network provides medical staff and pregnant women with information about the importance of humanizing childbirth", Álvarez stressed.

"When I had my daughter, both the doctor and the nurse scolded me. I was crying and shouting because I had strong pain. Although I was anesthetized, it was really hard", Elena told WNS.

"I did not know I could determine the most comfortable position for delivery and have a family member with me. I was not aware of the fact that depilation and vaginal cuts are really not compulsory", she added.

"I had always given birth to my children at home. The youngest, however, was born at a hospital. The doctor told me I was stinking," Francisca recalled. She is a 38-year-old domestic servant.

"We are trying to disseminate information about pregnant women's rights, Álvarez noted. We organize campaigns, talks and training courses, and publish newsletters along these lines", she commented.

Rights are being trampled upon

Resolution Nº 0496 was enacted in 2001 and has been in force ever since. Although it theoretically provides women with protection and decision-making power at the time of delivery, it has actually been cast into oblivion.

Álvarez told WNS that the opinion of a pregnant woman is seldom considered and that technologies are overused at most healthcare centers.

"Medical staff should never disqualify the feelings and intuition of a woman in labor", she added. "There is no doubt that the horizontal position causes more pain than the vertical one," she exemplified.

"Our idea is to guarantee safe, non-violent delivery and turn it into a happy rather than a traumatic event", she concluded.

Nicaragua: Criminal Code under reform

By Sylvia R. Torres

Managua, December.– The reform of the Criminal Code, which has been in force since the early 20th century, has not made it possible to modernize the State, but eliminate legal provisions on therapeutic abortion.

After years of heated debate and mobilization, the legislative debate over the reform culminated on November 13 with the criminalization of such a practice. It had been accepted when a mother’s life was at risk or the fetus was not viable or exhibited serious congenital malformations.

The possibility to free medical staff performing abortion under these circumstances from any criminal responsibility was denied at the last minute.

MP Mónica Baltodano, representative of the Sandinista Renovation Movement who presented the bill, said that Wilfredo Navarro, of the Constitutional Liberal Party, and Edwin Castro, of the Sandinista Front, had blocked the initiative agreed upon.

Baltodano added that the ban on therapeutic abortion denies the right to life and is an expression of fundamentalism in local politics.

History shows that, when the dominant classes feel they are losing power or influence, they join the Church and extol fundamentalist attitudes to keep the people under subjection," she stressed.

Women movements organized a number of activities to raise awareness about and condemn the move. They collected thousands of signatures and sought remedy of amparo at the Supreme Court.

At the same time, an Observatory established by the Strategic Group to De-criminalize Therapeutic Abortion announced that the number of women dying of pregnancy-related problems has been growing.

Magaly Quintana, representative of the Feminist Movement, indicated that 54 pregnant women had died while they waited for an answer to the remedy.

Health Ministry data show that the number of women dying of ectopic pregnancy is on the upswing because doctors are afraid of being expelled and/or incarcerated. Most victims are 15 to 40 years old.

A young girl in Nagarote, a village 30 kilometers away from Managua, died because she was not accepted by any state-operated healthcare center, including the main hospital in the country. There is, however, an Obstetric Emergency Care Protocol in force.

The struggle to get therapeutic abortion authorized was backed up by outstanding legal and scientific personalities, making use of amicus curiae (friend of the court) category. This Latin expression is used to refer to a bystander that suggests or states some matter of law for the assistance of the court.

A key role in this connection has been played by Carlos Gaviria, former Colombian judge and current president of the local Alternative Democratic Front, and Carmen Valenzuela, representative of Catholic Women for the Right to Choose.

Feminists like Ana María Pizarro think that the gap has been widening since 2000, when the Nicaraguan National Assembly (local parliament) introduced Article No. 148 in the Criminal Code, following a petition of the Church. It established that the rights of the fetus were more important than the rights of pregnant women.

Environment: Accelerated real-estate development in the region

By Zoraida Portillo

Lima, December.– Latin America and the Caribbean make up the Third World region with the highest number of real-estate development projects under implementation. Unplanned city growth is posing a serious environmental threat. This statement is contained in a United Nations report on the Global Environment Outlook (GEO 4).

Urban population in the area moved from 66 percent of the total in 1987 to 77 percent in 2005. Such a trend also helped transfer poverty from rural to urban areas, where 39 percent and 54 percent of poor and extremely poor people live.

As most production and consumption activities are being conducted in major cities, they are negatively affecting the surrounding ecosystems through deforestation, land degradation, biodiversity loss, soil, air and water contamination, and building materials production, the document reads.

Mexico City and Santiago de Chile are the only big cities of the region where atmospheric pollution is being properly managed. There are, however, high oil pollution levels in the Wider Caribbean, out of Brazil and in the Gulf of Mexico, it adds.

Pollution is growing in small- and medium-sized cities where access to resources and control technology is difficult.

Only 23 percent of local solid wastes are being appropriately treated and 86 percent of wastewaters are being dumped (untreated) into rivers and seas. The latter reach 90 percent in the Caribbean, the report indicates.

Against this background, biodiversity is under threat; coastal areas are degraded; seas are contaminated; and ecosystems are made extremely vulnerable to climate change.

They include mountain ecosystems in the Andean region, swamp areas along the coast, unspoiled tropical forests in Meso-America and the Amazon River basin, and mangroves and coral reefs in the Caribbean. They total 55 vulnerable, 51 threatened and 31 endangered ecosystems.

Snow-covered areas in mountain ranges of the Andes and Patagonia are diminishing; glaciers are disappearing; and there is sea-water ingress due to sea- level rise. All this will have a negative impact on drinking water supply, production and tourism, the document emphasizes.

Infectious diseases like malaria, dengue and yellow fever (which are endemic in the region), and even bubonic plague are reaching new geographical areas, it stresses.

While Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela make up an area that exhibits extensive biological diversity, this area accounted for 66 percent of the total number of forests lost in the 2000-2005 period.

The report includes some encouraging news, however. They have to do with the efforts made to preserve biodiversity in many countries and payment for environmental services.

The former involve the Meso-American Biological Corridor, which stretches from southern Mexico to Panama, and a Pilot Project to Preserve the Virgin Jungle in Brazil.

The latter can provide a critical instrument to effectively protect biodiversity in many countries, including Mexico, Costa Rica and Colombia.

While efforts are underway to establish protected sea areas, there is a need to integrate coast and river-basin management, it concludes.

Argentina: Cristina Fernández, the new President

By Norma Loto

Buenos Aires, December.– Something unusual and, until recently, quite unexpected has happened: a woman has taken up the presidency of the country. Local protocol standards had never contemplated the idea of having the baton of power held by a woman.

Last December 10, Argentina embarked on a new road, with the first woman elected President of the Nation. She has promised to further implement the economic, political and social model headed by her husband, outgoing President Néstor Kirchner.

Undertaken in 2003, the model in question has sought to overcome a serious crisis that generated massive unemployment, malnutrition, savings misappropriation and citizen uncertainty. Kirchner managed to partly redress such a situation.

The day prior to her inauguration, Fernández signed an agreement with the Presidents of the Southern Cone establishing the Bank of the South (a regional credit facility).

In this context, she said:" On this special day for all Argentineans, I want to tell you I never dreamed this moment would ever come. But here I am on December 9, in the White Hall of the Pink House, accompanied by presidents who, as I have repeatedly said, look for the first time very much like their peoples."

On December 10, she visited the parliament building to take an oath. She looked quiet and natural. She managed to hide her emotions and affect those present.

Her speech was 45 minutes long. Writer Pablo Feinmann provided the best description of the ceremony in an article for Página 12 daily newspaper: Fernández did not read. She looked at everyone in Congress and began to talk, feeling overwhelmingly self-assured.

"This contrasted sharply with her macho predecessors, who were always hesitant, constantly looking at their papers, clearly showing that they were just reading the ideas they had been dictated", he added.

In her speech, she talked to her mother, defended public education, highlighted the importance of the newly established Ministry of Science and Technology, and paid tribute to Eva Perón and the mothers and grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.

She told Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez: I will never intend to deepen bilateral differences. I sincerely tell you that we did not create the current situation. We have resorted to the International Court at The Hague, because an action has been taken without Argentinean consent under the Uruguay River Treaty.

"This is the conflict. Overcoming it requires sincerity on all of us. We should simply be aware of our differences to be able to manage them properly", she added.

Accompanied by her family, she got in the car that took them to the Pink House, where she signed the first decrees appointing her ministerial cabinet.

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The Women's News Service from Latin America and the Caribbean, International News Agency, offers this weekly service. No reproduction without authorization. Any comment o suggestion please contact us: semlac@redsemlac.net