UN ruling on pregnant girls offers hope for abortion care

Enid Muthoni is the chief program officer at the Center for Reproductive Rights; Lori Adelman is the executive director of Planned Parenthood Global.

Nicaraguan Susana was 13-years-old when she became pregnant by her grandfather, who had repeatedly raped her. When she found out, Susana said she did not want to continue with the pregnancy, and, with the help of her grandmother, pled five times for the complaint against her aggressor to be accepted.

In a country like Nicaragua, which totally bans abortion and has normalized human rights violations, voices like Susana's are not heard. She was forced into motherhood, while her aggressor was never prosecuted. However, this month Susana finally got justice on Jan. 20.

On the same day Donald Trump returned to the White House, the United Nations Human Rights Committee delivered three groundbreaking rulings, holding Ecuador and Nicaragua responsible for grave human rights violations against Susana and two other young survivors of rape who were forced into motherhood.

The Committee is clear: everyone, and with greater emphasis on girls, has the right to be free from sexual violence and free to make their own choices. Although the decisions are about the cases of Norma from Ecuador and Lucía and Susana from Nicaragua, they set a new international standard for more than 170 signatory countries of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including the United States.

The trend of authoritarian movements taking power around the world has posed a serious risk to the rights of girls and women, but these historic decisions pave a path of hope on a global level. These rulings could significantly impact the lives of girls globally and strongly challenge President Trump’s harmful anti-abortion stance, recently illustrated with the reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule, which cuts off U.S. funds to foreign charities that provide or promote abortions.

After their sexual assaults, Norma, Susana, and Lucía suffered additional forms of violence from the institutions that failed them and the health providers who treated them. Upon learning of their pregnancies, the three girls expressed that they did not want to be mothers. Despite Ecuador’s laws allowing abortion when the life and health of a mother are at risk, Norma was denied the procedure. Susana and Lucía faced a similar fate in Nicaragua. All were forced to carry pregnancies resulting from rape and to take on motherhood when they were not ready.

To prevent other girls from having to give up their dreams due to forced motherhood, the Committee ordered the countries to take several measures. These include reforming their laws to ensure safe, legal, and effective access to abortion, especially when a pregnancy results from sexual violence or poses a risk to the life or health of the pregnant person. The Committee also made a call for real actions to remove barriers to comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare services and to prevent sexual violence.

The groundbreaking rulings are a huge victory resulting from international litigation initiated in 2019 by the Movimiento Son Niñas No Madres (They Are Girls, Not Mothers Movement), a coalition of more than a dozen organizations including Planned Parenthood Global and the Center for Reproductive Rights. This litigation was based on evidence in the Stolen Lives report, which documented how in Latin America forced pregnancies compounded the experience of rape among young girls. The report highlighted this as a structural issue due to normalized violence, recurring injustice, gender stereotypes and discrimination, and girls’ lack of power to make decisions about their bodies.

This regional situation echoes deeply in the U.S., where the damaging effects of the 2022 removal of the constitutional right to abortion after the U.S Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, continue to reverberate nationwide. The Trump administration's restrictive policies are set to further jeopardize access to abortion and other reproductive health services, exacerbating the risks of violence and vulnerability faced by girls and women throughout the country and beyond. In stark contrast to the Trump administration's regressive stance on reproductive rights, these recent victories are a path to progress on protecting the rights of women and girls worldwide.

We hope that in the coming years, we can achieve the recognition of a stronger standard that clearly establishes the need to fully decriminalize abortion and regulate it as a healthcare service. For now, Nicaragua and Ecuador have six months to report on the implementation of the obligations contained in the rulings. During this time, monitoring by the international community and civil society will be instrumental in ensuring that these countries make reparations to the survivors and implement reforms to national policies enshrining abortion rights.

This landmark victory from the global south highlights that the fight for reproductive rights and comprehensive sexual education has no borders. This is a matter of health, humanity and dignity, that should go beyond fears and political beliefs.