Mom of 11-year-old pregnant girl in Paraguay: I tried to get help

Child sex abuse victim to give birth in Paraguay 01:20

Asunción, Paraguay (CNN)Long before the case of a pregnant child in Paraguay who was allegedly raped by her stepfather drew international attention and became the latest lightning rod in the abortion debate, the girl's mother says she went to authorities asking for help.

"I was the one who reported all of this, asking for justice to be done and hoping that something would be done, but prosecutors dismissed the case," the mother told CNN en Español in an exclusive interview Thursday. "Otherwise, this would have never gotten to this point."

It was November 2013 when she first reported the abuse, according to the mother, who CNN is not identifying in compliance with Paraguayan laws protecting the alleged victims of abuse.

Now, her 11-year-old daughter is pregnant. The mother is accused of child neglect and complicity. And the stepfather is behind bars, accused of rape.

In her first interview with an international media organization, the mother said the charges against her are false, and the view the public has of her simply isn't true.

"I was unjustly accused," she said, tearfully describing what she said were years of threats and abuse she endured at the hands of her husband.

Paraguayan Health Minister Antonio Barrios earlier told CNN that neighbors were the ones who'd reported the abuse, and that the mother had denied accusations against her husband.

"Who should we believe? Why would I do something like that?" the mother said Thursday. "I went to demand justice, but authorities decided not to carry out an investigation."

Debate over Paraguay's response

The case has sparked international debate, with high-profile human rights organizations criticizing the government's response.

The girl's mother, according to Amnesty International, had asked for the pregnancy to be terminated after learning about it in April.

Paraguayan law bans abortions except in cases where the pregnancy endangers the mother's life. The Paraguayan Ministry of Health has said there's no indication that the health of the girl is at risk.

Earlier this month, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights cited recent testimony from U.N. experts saying Paraguay's government had "failed in its responsibility to protect a 10-year old sexual abuse survivor and provide her with critical and timely treatments, including a 'safe and therapeutic' abortion."

The human rights commission said the girl, who was 26 weeks pregnant at the time of its statement, was facing a serious health situation with a significant possibility of complications. It criticized the Paraguayan government for not releasing enough information about the case and questioned whether the girl and her family were being provided enough information about the situation and the significant medical risks.

Paraguay's government has maintained it's done everything possible to protect the girl's life, and the life of the fetus.

'We are going to take care of the baby'

The moment she got out of jail on a provisional release this week, the mother said she knew where she needed to be: by her daughter's side.

"I went to talk to my daughter after almost two months," she said. "I felt a huge excitement that couldn't be contained in my heart, as any mother would."

Doctors, according to the mother, say her daughter -- now seven months pregnant -- is in good health and doing well.

The stepfather has denied the charges against him and demanded a DNA test.

"I'm going to leave it all up to the justice (system). Let them do their job, even if they didn't do it until now," the mother told CNN en Español. "I asked for this a long time ago, two years ago, and they never listened to me. I'm now asking that justice be done. I leave justice in their hands so that this never happens again."

There are no more options now, the mother said, other than waiting for the baby's birth and supporting her daughter.

"We are going to wait for the baby to be born," she said. "And between my whole family, we are going to take care of her baby, so she can keep studying. ... Because nothing that happened to her was her fault."

source -cnn