Law Bans Raped 10-Year-Old Girl From Aborting her Twins In Senegal

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A 10-year-old girl who is pregnant with twins after she was raped by a neighbor has been forced to continue with her pregnancy after human rights campaigners lost their fight to secure a legal route to abortion.

The plight of the girl, who is five months pregnant and lives in the southern region of Zinguinchor, Senegal, highlights the heavy cost women and children are paying for a Napoleonic law on abortion 
that is still in force in the former French colony.

According to Fatou Kiné Camara, president of the Senegalese women lawyers' association:

 "This young girl is going to have to go through with the pregnancy. The best we can do is keep up pressure on the authorities to ensure the girl gets regular scans and free medical care. We had a previous case of a raped nine-year-old who had to go through with her pregnancy. We paid for her caesarean but she died a few months after the baby was born, presumably because the physical trauma of childbirth was too great."

Camara says Senegal's abortion law is one of the harshest and deadliest in Africa. For a termination to be legal in Senegal, three doctors have to certify that the woman will die unless she aborts immediately.  A doctor or pharmacist found guilty of having a role in a termination faces being struck off. A woman found guilty of abortion can be jailed for up to 10 years.