A judge in El Salvador on Monday acquitted a 20-year-old rape victim originally charged with murder after giving birth prematurely in a toilet. 
 
 Imelda Cortez’s daughter survived but the woman was charged with homicide after the baby was found in a septic tank. 
 
 It was seen as a landmark case by women’s rights groups in El Salvador, where abortion is completely banned and women can face up to 40 years in prison, even for a miscarriage. 
 
 A court in the southeastern city of Usulutan “absolved” Cortez, her defence lawyer Bertha Maria Deleon wrote on Twitter. 
 
 A spokesman from the La Casa de Todas feminist group confirmed to AFP that Cortez was “free.” 
 
 Cortez fell pregnant to her stepfather, who allegedly raped her repeatedly over a seven-year period. 
 
 She has already spent more than a year and a half behind bars awaiting trial. The case took a dramatic turn when prosecutors changed the charge against her from homicide to “abandonment and neglect.” 
 
 “We know that Imelda didn’t commit any crime,” one of Cortez’s lawyers, Keyla Caceres told AFP earlier. 
 
 The premature birth was discovered after Cortez sought hospital treatment in April 2017 for a haemorrhage. 
 
 Doctors examining her took out the placenta. 
 
 Cortez said she’d felt something come out of her when using the bathroom. Police and soldiers inspected the septic tank at Cortez’s house and found a crying baby “covered in faeces and white dust,” according to legal authorities. 
 
 The baby was taken to hospital and survived. 
 
 El Salvador has some of the toughest anti-abortion laws in the world, banning the process even in cases of rape or when a mother’s life is at risk. 
 
 Caceres said Cortez was representative of “girls and young adolescents whose human rights are completely violated” by the country’s unforgiving abortion laws. 

 Imelda Cortez, 20, faced an attempted murder charge under draconian abortion laws after being raped by her stepfather 
 
 A rape victim who was charged with attempted murder in El Salvador after giving birth to her abuser’s baby has been found not guilty and freed from jail. 
 
 Imelda Cortez, 20, has been in custody since April 2017 after giving birth in a latrine to a baby girl fathered by her abusive stepfather. 
 
 She was facing 20 years in prison after prosecutors argued that failing to tell anyone about the pregnancy or seek medical attention for the baby amounted to attempted murder. 
 
 The decision to prosecute Cortez, who suffered years of sexual abuse, had prompted outrage around the world. 
 
 Woman who bore rapist’s baby faces 20 years in El Salvador jail Read more 
 
 But on Monday morning, prosecutors reduced the charge from attempted murder to abandonment – and offence which carries a 12-month jail term. 
 
 Then, in a dramatic turn of events, the court declared Cortez not guilty of any crime, and ruled she was free to go home. Cortez always maintained her innocence, and that she did not know she was pregnant. 
 
 Cortez walked free on Monday afternoon to elated chants of “sí se pudo” or “yes she could” by 200 or so joyous supporters outside the courtroom. 
 
 In what’s been hailed a precedent setting ruling, the judge concluded that the court could not expect Imelda to have acted differently given the emotional and psychological damage inflicted by the sexual violence she suffered since childhood. 
 
 Monday’s verdict was welcomed by campaigners who called for urgent reform to save other women suffering the dire consequences of El Salvador’s total ban on abortion. 
 
 “We are extremely happy, and thankful for everyone’s support. It took the whole world to make the judges and prosecutors see what we’ve been saying for years: an obstetric emergency is not a crime,” said Paula Avila-Guillen, the director of Latin America Initiatives at the New York-based Women’s Equality Centre and part of Cortez’s legal team. 
 
 El Salvador is one of four countries where abortion is illegal in all circumstances, even if the woman is raped, her health or life is at risk, or if the foetus is seriously deformed. 
 
 Abortion was criminalised 21 years ago, after legislators from across the political spectrum voted to strip women of their reproductive rights without any public debate or medical consultation about the consequences. 
 
 The draconian ban has led to a string of miscarriages of justice in a conservative, machista culture that enables the persecution of women. 
 
 Most cases involve poor and single women from rural areas who are convicted on tenuous evidence after having a spontaneous obstetric gynaecological complication such as a miscarriage or stillbirth. 
 
 Cortez was rushed to hospital after complaining of severe pain and bleeding heavily, where the emergency room doctor suspected an abortion and called the police. 
 
 The police discovered the newborn girl, healthy and breathing, in the outdoor latrine, and took her to hospital where doctors found no evidence of physical harm. It was then that Cortez realized that she’d been pregnant as a result of being raped by her 70-year-old stepfather. 
 
 After she was charged with attempted murder, her stepfather visited her in hospital, threatening to kill her, her siblings and her mother if she reported the abuse. Another patient overheard and told a nurse, who called the police. 
 
 At first, prosecutors accused Cortez of inventing the abuse to justify her crime, until a DNA test confirmed the baby’s paternity. Her stepfather was eventually detained, but has not been charged with any crime. 
 
 During her 17-month pre-trial detention, Cortez was denied access to psychological support and never allowed to hold her baby daughter. 
 
 Cortez is the sixth wrongly imprisoned woman freed so far this year thanks to dogged campaigns by national and international reproductive rights groups. Another 24 are still serving 15 to 30 years in jail. 
 
 “We are very happy for Imelda but will not forget the other 24 women still in prison for suffering an obstetric complication. They must be released,” added lawyer Avila-Guillen. 
 
 Bertha María Deleón, Cortez’s lawyer, told the Guardian: “This ruling opens the door for the other jailed women and gives us hope because it shows that judges are finally daring to make decisions from a gender perspective rather than based on gender stereotypes. This judge shows us that the criminal justice is changing, slowly, but it is changing.” 

 Image copyright Reuters Image caption Imelda Cortez spent more than 18 months in custody as she awaited trial 
 
 A woman who was jailed for attempted murder under El Salvador's strict anti-abortion laws has been freed. 
 
 Imelda Cortez, 20, says she became pregnant by her stepfather who sexually abused her for many years. 
 
 Doctors suspected she had tried to perform an abortion after she gave birth to a baby girl in a latrine in April of last year. 
 
 The child survived, but Ms Cortez was arrested and spent more than 18 months in custody as she awaited trial. 
 
 Prosecutors argued that her failure to tell anyone about the pregnancy and seek medical help after giving birth amounted to attempted murder, which carries a possible 20-year sentence. 
 
 But on Monday a court ruled that Ms Cortez, who was unaware that she was pregnant, had not tried to kill her child. 
 
 Her lawyers said that to avoid a harsher sentence she had admitted to neglecting her newborn baby, an offence that carries a one-year jail term. 
 
 But the court ultimately decided that she was not guilty of any crime and was free to go home. 
 
 "This sentence... represents hope for women who are still in prison and are also being tried for aggravated homicide," defence lawyer Ana Martinez told reporters following the verdict. 
 
 Image copyright Reuters Image caption Supporters of Ms Cortez celebrate following her release 
 
 Ms Cortez was greeted outside the court in Usulután by cheering relatives and human rights activists bearing signs with messages of support. 
 
 Prosecutors say her stepfather has been arrested and is awaiting trial. 
 
 El Salvador is one of a handful of countries in the world where abortions are completely banned and carry heavy sentences. 
 
 While the country is not alone in Latin America in having a total ban on abortions, it is particularly strict in the way it enforces it. 
 
 Doctors have to inform the authorities if they think a woman has tried to end her pregnancy. If they fail to report such cases, they too could face long sentences in jail. 
 
 The result is what human rights groups are calling a criminalisation of miscarriages and medical emergencies, with more than 100 people convicted of abortion-related crimes in El Salvador since 2000.
– El Salvador's Imelda Cortez is out of prison for the first time in more than a year and a half, and her freedom is being hailed as a potential landmark moment for women's rights in her country, reports AFP. Cortez's plight had drawn international attention: The 20-year-old was charged with attempted murder after giving birth to a premature infant in a bathroom. Cortez, however, says she hadn't even known she was pregnant, only that she felt something pass and then went to the hospital in pain. Authorities soon found the baby in the latrine, still alive, and prosecutors say Cortez's failure to summon help for the birth amounted to attempted murder. The other big part of the case: Cortez says she must have become pregnant by her stepfather, who she says had been sexually abusing her for several years. The stepfather is now under arrest and facing trial, reports the BBC. El Salvador has among the world's toughest laws on abortion, outlawing it in cases of rape and even when the woman's life is in danger. Those laws played a role in the charges she faced, but on Monday, prosecutors reduced them from attempted murder to abandonment. Then a court cleared Cortez of any crime at all, reports the Guardian. The judge ruled that she could not be blamed for what happened, given the "emotional and psychological damage inflicted by the sexual violence she suffered since childhood," in the words of the Guardian. Says a member of her legal team: "It took the whole world to make the judges and prosecutors see what we've been saying for years: An obstetric emergency is not a crime."