In 2022, an individual petition was filed before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on behalf of K.M., currently represented by the Asociación Generating Equity, Leadership and Opportunities (ASOGEN), the Health and Human Rights Initiative, and Ríos.

K.M. is a woman with physical and intellectual disabilities who lives with her family in a situation of poverty in rural Guatemala. At the age of 17, K.M. suffered sexual violence, perpetrated on several occasions by her uncle, which resulted in a pregnancy. K.M. was never informed about the possibility of accessing an abortion, and after she carried the pregnancy to term and gave birth, she was sterilized without consent. The petition outlines how these failures to provide adequate care for K.M. as an adolescent with a disability and as a survivor of violence led to violations of her sexual and reproductive rights.

The State of Guatemala also failed to provide K.M. with access to justice. She was not provided with the support or adjustments required for her full participation in legal proceedings for “Threatened or Raped Children and Adolescents.” Medical and judicial officials discussed K.M.’s well-being and whether or not a therapeutic abortion was appropriate, without ever asking her directly about her wishes or preferences — violating her right to justice and to exercise her legal capacity.

The petition before CRPD argues that the State of Guatemala is responsible for having failed to comply with its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The organizations are asking the committee for comprehensive reparation for K.M., and measures to prevent similar rights violations from being committed in the future.

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November 22, 2024

Judicial Dialogues on Health and the Law in Latin America and the Caribbean