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El Salvador woman freed from stillbirth jail sentence

TEODORA del Carmen Vasquez was freed from prison on Thursday after serving 10 years of a 30-year jail sentence for having a stillborn baby.

El Salvador’s Supreme Court commuted her sentence, ruling that there was no proof she tried to terminate her pregnancy.

Ms Vasquez was at work in a school canteen in 2007, in the final month of her pregnancy, when she began bleeding and suffered a stillbirth. Authorities charged her with aggravated homicide, alleging that she had aborted the foetus.

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