El Salvadorean woman who miscarried cleared of murder

A 21-year-old woman in El Salvador whose baby was found dead in the toilet where she gave birth has been cleared of murder, during a retrial. According to a BBC News report, Evelyn Hernández had always maintained she was innocent, saying that she did not know she was pregnant and lost consciousness during the birth. Prosecutors had asked for a prison sentence of 40 years. Her case has been closely watched in El Salvador and abroad with women's rights activists calling for her acquittal. El Salvador has one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the world. Abortion is illegal in all circumstances and those found guilty face between two and eight years in jail. But in many cases, including the one against Hernández, the charge is changed to one of aggravated homicide, which carries a minimum sentence of 30 years. Hernández's defence lawyer, Bertha Maria Deleon, however, said the fight was not over: Hernández's case was the first of its kind in El Salvador in which a full retrial had been ordered. Women's rights activists hope the retrial will set a precedent allowing other women jailed for similar reasons to fight their sentences. Amnesty International described the verdict as a ‘resounding victory for the rights of women in El Salvador’ and called on the government to ‘end the shameful and discriminatory practice of criminalising women’. Rights organisations in El Salvador say there are at least 17 other women in jail under the country's strict abortion laws.