‘I was 9 years old, I didn’t speak or smile’: the case of childhood abortion that shocked Brazil 13 years ago

A skinny girl, just 9 years old, pregnant after being raped for a long time.

A reaction of sectors of society against abortion permitted by law and chosen by her and the mother.

The above case, which took place in Pernambuco 13 years ago, generated great public commotion and was symbolic of the various traumas and violence suffered by victims of rape and childhood pregnancy, even before their bodies are able to support a healthy pregnancy.

The episode also bears similarities to the case of the 11-year-old girl who spent a month in a shelter, by order of a judge in Santa Catarina, to prevent her from interrupting a pregnancy resulting from rape.

‘Girl didn’t speak’

The year was 2009 when the girl from Pesqueira (PE) complained of pain and was taken by her mother to a medical appointment.

Doctors discovered that she was pregnant with twins — and later that she had been the victim of rape by her stepfather since she was 6 years old.

The pregnancy was high risk, given the girl’s age and small physical size. Reports at the time indicate that she was 36 kilos and 1.32 meters tall.

“She was a very small girl, both in age and physically, and she didn’t have much idea of ​​what was happening”, tells BBC News Brasil Cristina Buarque, who at the time was state secretary for women in the government of Pernambuco and who accompanied the girl later. that the case was referred to Recife.

The story quickly attracted the attention of the press and civil society, putting the family and the girl in the spotlight.

According to Buarque, the mother was very determined to terminate the pregnancy, given the burden on her daughter.

“I have a very clear memory that the girl didn’t say anything. She kept a doll in her hand all the time. And she was a very fearful, distressed child. She didn’t answer any questions”, says Buarque. “I only saw her smile and speak after the miscarriage happened.”

The termination of pregnancy was performed at the Integrated Health Center Amaury de Medeiros (Cisam), a hospital in Recife linked to the University of Pernambuco. Doctor Olímpio de Moraes, coordinator of the center, has a similar memory to Cristina Buarque.

“The girl had only menstruated once and did not understand what was happening, although she was told what a pregnancy was. She thought she was sick and went to the hospital to have the tumor removed. obstetrician to BBC News Brasil, in an interview given in 2016.

But abortion was harshly criticized by the Catholic Church, which mobilized to prevent it.

The then Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Dom José Cardoso Sobrinho, excommunicated all the people involved in the procedure — from the girl’s mother to the doctors at the hospital.

“God’s law is above any human law. When human law, that is, a law enacted by human legislators, is contrary to God’s law, that human law has no value,” said the archbishop at the time.

The girl was spared excommunication.

“To incur this ecclesiastical penalty, you must be of age. The Church, then, is very benevolent, especially with minors. Now the adults – who approved and who performed this abortion – have incurred excommunication”, declared the religious at the time.

After 13 years, Cristina Buarque says that she found the role of the Catholic Church in the episode “something monstrous”.

“There were many men involved in controlling (the body) of a female person, and that person was a child”, he criticizes.

“But I also saw a group of women very determined to protect the girl. It was civil society that called me: I received calls saying ‘secretary, this (the restriction of legal abortion) is happening, and you need to act'”, recalls Buarque .

“And I already knew that I had to act, but I want to make clear the importance of social movements being vigilant; of having a (government) secretary’s phone number and being able to call me.”

Doctor Olímpio Moraes told the BBC in 2016 that he never had any doubts “that that (interruption of pregnancy) was the right thing to do. In her case, there were two indications for legal abortion. In addition to rape, there was the risk of death. She was a 1.32m pregnant with twins. That’s a high risk pregnancy.”

Although some girls start menstruating from the age of 9 or 10, precocious puberty linked to social and hormonal issues does not mean that their bodies are ready to gestate or give birth, explains to BBC News Brasil Melania Amorim, professor of Gynecology and Obstetrics at the Federal University of Campina Grande (PB).

During the growth phase of the body, “in many girls, the bones of the pelvis are not formed, so vaginal delivery is very difficult”, explains Amorim. Even with cesarean, there are risks of excessive bleeding, anemia, eclampsia (hypertension in pregnancy), premature births, rupture of the uterus, need for blood transfusion or ICU admission.

Olímpio Moraes also points out that, in a body that is immature for pregnancy, the chance of death or serious complications is much higher than in a pregnancy of women in their 20s.

On the excommunication, he said:

“I even joke that I didn’t receive any certificate (from the Church) to put on my resume, in defense of women. I’m Catholic, like most Brazilians, but I’m not a practitioner. And I think that’s one of the reasons why people walk away when they start to practice. Sometimes I think that many religions do not match a basic principle which is to have compassion and respect the suffering of others.”

New life

After the abortion, the girl returned to live with her mother and sister — and her stepfather was arrested.

Due to the great repercussion of the case, says Cristina Buarque, the Pernambuco government transferred the family — the girl with her mother and sister — to another city, where they could restart their lives, with psychological support.

“It was the least we could do as a secular state that protects its children”, argues the former secretary. “We didn’t think such a case could be abandoned. She couldn’t go back to living in the same place where the whole world knew where she was.”

Buarque says the case was monitored by the state secretariat for a few years, until the girl was in her early teens.

“She went back to school and stayed with her mother. She had an orderly life. (…) I don’t know if she’s happy, it’s not a fairy tale, but I know her mother went back to work, and she went within a poor family life.”

The case of the girl from Pernambuco in 2009 came to Buarque’s mind when he saw the news two years ago — when a girl from Espírito Santo, raped at the age of 10, was prevented from having an abortion in her state and was taken to Recife to perform the procedure — and , now, with what happened in Santa Catarina.

“It is unthinkable that states cannot do or refuse to do something that the law requires,” says Buarque, referring to legal abortion in Brazil — in cases of rape, risk to the mother’s life or anencephaly.

In Santa Catarina, the 11-year-old girl was initially denied an abortion by the Florianópolis hospital that treated her, because the pregnancy was beyond 22 weeks — despite the fact that the Brazilian Penal Code does not impose a gestational age limit.

The case was brought to court, and recordings published by Portal Catarinas and The Intercept Brasil show the judge asking the girl if she would accept “to put up with the pregnancy a little longer”. After the repercussion of the case, the girl was removed from the shelter, returned to live with her mother, and her pregnancy was terminated.

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) expressed himself on social media about the case, saying that “taking an innocent life, in addition to violating the fundamental right of every human being, does not heal wounds or do justice to anyone, on the contrary, abortion only exacerbates this tragedy even further”.

Data collected by BBC News Brasil in 2020 show that, according to official data, there are, on average, six daily hospitalizations for abortion in Brazil involving girls aged 10 to 14 who became pregnant after being raped.

This text was originally published on the BBC News Brazil website.