The family of an 11-year-old girl who became pregnant after her 61-year-old step-grandfather allegedly raped her has refused to let her have an abortion.
The young girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is more than five months pregnant.
She was allegedly raped by her stepfather's dad, who is half a century older than her, in the Bolivian town of Yapacaní, near Santa Cruz, in the centre of the South American country.
The girl's family had accepted the abortion at first but changed its mind over the weekend and signed their consent to continue the pregnancy.
Women's House chief, Ana Paola García, said to newspaper EFE the young girl told one of her cousins 'she felt strange movements in her belly'.
The family of an 11-year-old girl who became pregnant after her 61-year-old step-grandfather allegedly raped her has refused to let her have an abortion. The family's lawyer Giovanni Cabello (pictured) announced the decision to reporters in Bolivia
The cousin told her mother, the 11-year-old girl's aunt, who filed a police complaint.
'She does not want to be a mother,' García said.
'What is being done with this creature is a crime'.
She added the victim was given a first dose of the pregnancy termination medication.
'It is not possible for us to force an 11-year-old girl to be in a nine-month gestation process, that is torture.'
García said there were 39,999 pregnancies of children under 18 in Bolivia in 2020, an average of 109 girls per day.
The 11-year-old was allegedly raped by her stepfather's dad, who is half a century older than her, in the Bolivian town of Yapacaní (pictured), near Santa Cruz, in the centre of the South American country
'This situation is alarming, sexual violence still plagues Bolivia and girls continue to be the main victims,' she added.
Abortion has been legal in Bolivia since 1970 in cases of alleged rape or sexual assault.
However, it has only been able to be done without a court order since a constitutional ruling in 2014.
Since then only a document signed by the victim informing her of the abortion procedure has been needed.
The family's decision change may have been influenced by the Catholic Church in Bolivia, which said 'the only solution is to save, care for and lovingly support both lives'.
The Church added: 'A crime is not solved with another crime, abortion does not remedy rape, nor does it give peace of mind to consciences, on the contrary, it leaves more serious psychological wounds for a long time.'
