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(CNN)An epidemic of puerility gestation successful Paraguay is being fueled by wide intersexual maltreatment and restrictive abortion laws, according to a caller Amnesty International report.
At slightest 1,000 girls aged 14 oregon younger gave commencement successful the state betwixt 2019 and 2020, the study says. It adds that much than 12,000 teenage girls betwixt the ages of 15 and 19 gave commencement successful 2019.
The report, titled "They are girls, not mothers," highlights a situation of intersexual unit against children, who are past forced to transportation resulting pregnancies to word nether Paraguayan law.
The South American nation's termination laws are immoderate of the astir utmost successful the region, with the process criminalized successful astir each circumstance, but erstwhile the beingness of the parent is recognized to beryllium successful danger.
Paraguay has 1 of the highest kid and teenage gestation rates successful Latin America and the Caribbean, according to Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
Early childbirth tin airs important wellness risks. Girls nether the property of 15 are 4 times much apt to dice from pregnancy-related complications, according to the Latin American Consortium against Unsafe Abortion.
In Paraguay, girls and teenagers betwixt the ages of 10 and 19 relationship for 1 successful 10 maternal deaths nationwide, arsenic good arsenic 13% of maternal deaths caused by unsafe abortions, according to Amnesty.
Paraguay adopted a instrumentality successful 2018 to forestall intersexual maltreatment and warrant broad attraction for kid and teenage survivors of intersexual abuse. However, the study describes the law's implementation arsenic insufficient, highlighting holes successful the extortion of young people, "such arsenic the lack of due nationalist policies and the nonaccomplishment to enforce existing laws to forestall maltreatment and supply redress erstwhile it does occur."
"By enactment and omission, Paraguay is turning its backmost connected its girls and teenagers arsenic they look unimaginable abuses," Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas manager astatine Amnesty International said.
"Girls person the close to a beingness escaped of violence. Forcing idiosyncratic to proceed with a pregnancy, peculiarly erstwhile it is the effect of rape, is simply a signifier of ill-treatment that tin beryllium considered torture," she added.
In 2019 alone, the country's Public Prosecutor's Office received an mean of 12 reports of intersexual unit against children and teenagers each day, which successful immoderate cases resulted successful pregnancy, according to the report.
Paraguay's restrictive stance connected termination has drawn planetary attraction before. In 2015, an 11-year-old gave birth aft Paraguayan authorities denied her an abortion. The miss had go large by her stepfather astatine the 10.
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