President KAGAME pardons women and girls jailed over abortion
President KAGAME pardons women and girls jailed over abortion
Kigali-04 April 2019-The hundreds of girls and women who were given Presidential clemency were released on Friday,05 April 2019 following an announcement made after a Cabinet Meeting that was chaired by His Excellency Paul KAGAME, the President of the Republic of Rwanda, held on 3rd April 2019.
The presidential prerogative reads: “Pursuant to the powers conferred upon him by the laws … the president of the republic informed the cabinet meeting that he has exercised his prerogative of mercy and pardoned 367 persons convicted for the offences of abortion, complicity in abortion and infanticide.”
Some of the released women and girls were serving their life imprisonment sentence.
In August last year, the government of Rwanda revised its penal code, which had previously imposed prison sentences on anyone having an abortion or assisting someone to terminate a pregnancy. Under the new law, abortion is allowed in cases of rape, forced marriage, incest, or instances where the pregnancy poses a health risk to the mother or foetus.
The new law requires that abortion be carried out after consultation with a doctor; in the past, the final decision was taken by the courts. The Ministerial Order determining conditions to be satisfied for a medical doctor to perform an
abortion was released on 08 April 2019.
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