Legal action needed against Nicaraguan feminists over abortion performed on 9 year-old

Managua, Nicaragua, Jan 18, 2008 / 23:00 pm

Bishop Abelardo Mata of Esteli and president of the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights announced this week that his organization will continue to call for legal action against nine activists from the “Women’s Network Against Violence” over the case of Rosita, a girl raped by her stepfather and used by feminists to advance their agenda of legalizing abortion.

“Legal action is not an act of vengeance, but rather a desire to see justice be done,” Bishop Mata said.

In 2003, the Women’s Network Against Violence orchestrated an abortion for “Rosita,” who became pregnant at the age of 9 after she was raped by her stepfather, Francisco Fletes Sanchez, who accused a neighbor of committing the act.

Based on the testimony of Fletes, the feminist organization launched a campaign that included the publishing of a book and news reports broadcast in 2007 in the US and Latin America by a popular cable network.

Last year Rosita, now 14 year-old, was discovered to be pregnant again, and DNA tests proved the stepfather had raped her again.  The girl’s mother, Maria de los Santos Esquivel, finally confessed that the stepfather was indeed responsible for the girl’s first pregnancy.

Bishop Mata’s call for legal action against the Women’s Network Against Violence is based on the legitimate suspicion that the feminists knew who the real culprit was and hid his identity in order to continue with their campaign to get officials to authorize an abortion.

The executive secretary of the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights, Roberto Petray, filed the lawsuit after Rosita herself admitted to a judge that her stepfather was the one who raped her in Costa Rica in 2003.

Petray said that the stepfather himself consented to an abortion for Rosita and argues that the Women’s Network was aware of this.  The feminist group has responded calling the charges “political terrorism.”

Bishop Mata stressed that the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights “has the duty to raise its voice and expose the problem to the appropriate individuals, in this case the Attorney General, in order for an investigation to take place.”

“As a member of the Catholic Church I hope that there will be more order in the country, that the law will have greater meaning, that more respect will be shown to institutions,” he continued.

Bishop Mata said for a nation to exist citizens must respect the law and not allow the Constitution to be trampled upon or ignored.  “We simply want justice to shine in our nation, and for justice to be done in the case of Rosita, who has been the biggest victim.  As a mother her first right was violated, with her child being killed, and all this amidst the silence of people who supposedly defended the right to life of the girl,” the bishop said.