Tribal law protects boy, 15, who impregnated 10-year-old Colombian girl from under-age sex charges

Young mother gave birth to daughter two weeks ago

She is in Wayuu tribe which has own justice system

They refuse to help in under-age sex investigation

By Simon Tomlinson




Colombian authorities have been frustrated in their attempts to file criminal charges against the young father of a baby born to a 10-year-old ethnic Wayuu girl.

The Wayuu people have their own justice system and rarely co-operate with agents of the Colombian state in such matters, Maria Gladys Pabon, chief prosecutor in Riohacha, the regional capital, said yesterday.

Under Colombian law, any sexual relations with a child age 14 or younger is a crime punishable by at least nine years in prison.


Frustrated: The Colombian authorities say they are not getting any co-operation from members of the Wayuu tribe as they investigate the young father of this baby born to a 10-year-old girl



Mother: The girl, a member of the northern indigenous Wayuu tribe in the La Guajira Peninsula, was 39 weeks pregnant when she underwent a Caesarean
But legal and indigenous affairs experts say that under Colombia’s 1991 constitution the Wayuu have jurisdiction.

The girl, who cannot be identified by law, gave birth on March 29 via Caesarean section and is one of the youngest mothers on record.

The father, who authorities say is 15, also cannot be identified.

The baby weighed 5.6lbs (2.6kg) and measured 14.5ins (47cm), said Dr Fabio Gonzalez, who delivered the child in a private clinic in Riohacha, on the Guajira peninsula in Colombia’s northeast coast.

Dr Gonzalez said ‘she barely understood what was happening’ at the moment of birth.

He added he had to operate because at that age the pelvis is still growing ‘and it’s too small for the fetus to pass through the vaginal canal.’


Home: The town of Manaure is in the northern La Guajira Peninsula of Colombia
He said the mother, who was discharged from the clinic in good health, is also relatively short at 4ft, 7ins (142cm).

When nurses took the newborn to her mother ‘it was as if a doll was being given to her,’ said Dr Gonzalez.

‘She has no idea. She doesn’t understand anything and that’s normal,’ he added.

The doctor said it was not the first time he had delivered the baby of a 10-year-old girl. He said he had a similar case last year.

In the latest case, the girl’s parents took her to the clinic from their hometown of Manuare.


Shame: The birth has been painful for the Wayuu (file picture), who mostly live on the Colombia-Venezuela border. But they do not believe she was raped
A Wayuu tribal leader, Rosa Iguaran, said the parents were refusing to speak to the media out of shame.

She said the incident was also painful for the Wayuu, who number about 350,000 and mostly live in the Colombia-Venezuela border region.

They don’t consider that the girl was raped but rather that the baby was conceived in consensual sex.

It will be up to the parents of both the boy and girl to decide whether the two should be married and what the boy’s family owes the girl’s family, whether it be ‘necklaces, cows, goats, whatever the family agrees on,’ said Iguaran.

Pabon, the prosecutor, said the family of the girl has refused to co-operate with her in her investigation.

She said she would not seek to arrest the father of the newborn without speaking with Wayuu leaders.

Colombian constitutional law experts say such cases are always very complicated.

Former Constitutional Court magistrate Rodrigo Escobar said that ‘what the Indians can’t do is submit a defendant to degrading treatment or the death penalty.’

The world’s youngest mother in a medically documented case was Lina Medina of Peru, who in 1939 produced an infant at the age of five years, eight months, according to the Guinness Book of Records.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2128007/Tribal-law-protects-boy-15-impregnated-10-year-old-Colombian-girl.html

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I wonder how this girl will deliver the baby.
She is not fully developed to give birth safely.

^^ didnt u read dt she delievered thru C. S


@op, wonders shall never end, d doctor even said, this is not d 1st time to help a 10yrs old mothers. Can u imagine?

Not surprising at all. We live in a fallen world.