Zoom Image
A thirteen-year-old girl holds her baby in a house for pregnant adolescents in Ciudad del Este (in May 2015). She says she was raped and impregnated by her stepfather.
Photo: Jorge Saenz / AP
The hardestthing is forgiveness. The girls would have to forgive themselves, but also those men who had impregnated them. Because if you don't forgive, you're poisoning your soul, the old man explains. In the musty chapel with its yellow-painted walls, mosquitoes buzz around, a heavy wooden cross is emblazoned above the altar. With trembling fingers, Oscar Avila points to a statue of the Virgin Mary. She, too, he says, became pregnant at the age of twelve. Still a child, but already a woman.
Of the approximately 240 girls who cared for her here until birth, not a single one died. The youngest was nine. He looks proud.
From the outside, Casa Rosa María is an inconspicuous brick building, located in the Recoleta district of theParaguayan capital Asunción. Broken mosquito nets hang in the windows, barbed wire is emblazoned on the fence. Inside, girls with pale faces and huge bellies scurry across the corridors. For 22 years, pregnant women up to the age of 17 have been brought here, now by the authorities, many of them victims of abuse, incest and violence. Here they are forced to carry their children to term.
"When they see their babies," enthuses the bald old man in the chapel, "they love them. Even if they bear the face of the Father."
The gloomy dream of anti-feminist fundamentalists, in Paraguay it is part of everyday life: If you get pregnant, you have to give birth. Abortions are strictly forbidden, with exceptions only if the mother's life is in acute danger. Every week, an average of nine children between the ages of 10 and 14 still give birth to a baby. Again and again, young girls die in childbirth. At the same time, child abuse is a major problem in Paraguay: The small country in the heart of South America has just seven and a half million inhabitants – last year, around ten cases were reported daily. In all likelihood, the number of unreported cases is significantly higher.
Paraguay has always been arch-conservative, but now a culture war is raging, which is usually won by the illiberal forces. In 2017, the state was one of the first countries in the world to introduce a "Register for Unborn Life", where babies who died in the womb are registered. In the same year, Paraguay became the first country to completely ban the concept and the word "gender" from the curriculum. It was not only religious groups on the ground that lobbied for both; They received support from evangelical organizations in the United States.
The example of Paraguay shows how powerful actors have networked internationally to advance an agenda against all social progress. Activist Mirta Moragas describes her homeland as a "test laboratory for the ideas of the new right". Paraguay is increasingly becoming the blueprint for the vision of a Christian nation in which church and state merge and human rights can be completely redefined.
It's eveningat Casa Rosa María. The courtyard is bathed in pale light. A quiet young woman with fine facial features serves mate tea to the old man. She used to live here and brought her eight-year-old son, her stepfather's child, with her.
Next door, a twelve-year-old collapses over a small table, sobbing so hard that her body trembles, the freckled child's face, the swollen breasts, the big belly bulging under her T-shirt and flowered pants. She comes from the countryside, is seven months pregnant, has been here since yesterday, wants nothing but to leave.
Journalists are forbidden to talk to the girls in Casa Rosa María, as they can be retraumatized.
Zoom Image
A pregnant girl rests in the chapel of Casa Rosa María
Photo: Mayeli Villalba / DER SPIEGEL
Once you have landed here, you are only allowed to leave the house if accompanied. Cell phones are not allowed. Sleeping in a room as a couple is also not possible, because of the danger of "lesbian pairing", as the bald old man explains with a raised index finger. Everyday life consists mainly of prayer, a pastor comes every day, as well as teachers who are supposed to take care of the girls' education.
In the evenings they are allowed to watch TV, but not telenovelas. They're all about lust, adultery. "If you turn it on..." The old man groans twice briefly, "ahh, ahh", he listens to the effect of his sounds, then continues: The series are an evil influence, would animate the girls to sex. And fathers are often absent in Paraguay. But men, men are always there.
Catholics once founded the Casa Rosa María, which is financed by donations. Those who work here see themselves as charitable. "When the girls arrive here, you first have to explain to them that they can't romp around wildly anymore," explains Cilsa Vera de Melgarejo, shaking her head. She works here alongside the old man as a caregiver. The current group is "very rebellious". It's about protecting the babies. "We're saving lives here." She wears a rosary around her neck and is proud of the three daily meals she cooks for her girls. They were also allowed to eat whatever they wanted in between.
Meanwhile, one by one, the old man puts his trembling hand on the foreheads of the journalists, begins to pray aloud.
Why, one wonders, does a state put underage girls in such institutions?
Paraguay is one of the poorest countries in the region and has been governed for decades by the conservative Colorado Party, which also won the recent elections. Pregnant girls in the countryside are often malnourished; their medical care is not guaranteed everywhere. Putting them in facilities has a long tradition. After birth, they leave the houses again: in the past, many were taken in as maids, so-called criadas, in middle-class families to do housework and inreturn to be allowed to go to school; sometimes their children were adopted.
Most recently, explains the responsible Minister for Children and Youth, the system has been reformed: Instead of overcrowded hostels, a kind of "family model" now applies: a maximum of six children are now cared for by a kind of surrogate mother and a father figure.
The minister, Teresa Martínez Acosta, a round woman in a colorful blouse, has a bad cold, but still came to the ministry for the interview. The issues are important to her. She says she has been fighting child abuse for years. For a long time, it was considered natural in Paraguay, and to a certain extent it was part of the culture; Children are all too often seen as objects. Her ministry is working on a "denormalization", but is encountering great resistance.
A national action plan drawn up by her ministry in November 2020 to strengthen the rights of children and young people was successfully attacked and finally rejected by the churches and the new right, some here call them the "Talibanos". Subsequently, the existence of her ministry was questioned. She had to defend herself in an eight-hour session before Congress – even though she herself belongs to the dominant Colorado party.
Experts are convinced that comprehensive sex education, as was part of the action plan, would be crucial for improving the situation. Instead, however, a decree issued by the Ministry of Education in 2017 still applies today. It prohibits the "dissemination and use of printed or digital materials related to gender theory and/or gender ideology" in public schools. The then Minister of Education promised that he would also burn books in public to make his position clear. Since then, only severely limited, purely biological education has been allowed in schools.
Not only did the ultra-conservatives lobby for the decree in their own country, they also received help from Christian and new right-wing organizations in the United States. According to research by openDemocracy, twenty such groups are active in Latin America, including the powerful evangelical Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which invests millions of eurosannually worldwide and funds relevant legal processes to restrict reproductive and sexual rights. In a country report, the international branch of the ADF praises Paraguay for its strict ban on abortion and recommends "resisting calls for further liberalization of abortion."
The ADF is considered a kind of Christian "army of lawyers". From 2007 to 2018, it is said to have spent at least $44 million in South America. When Amnesty International and the United Nations criticized Paraguay for its policies, the ADF put together a catalogue of arguments for the defenders of the "gender ban": The UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women was not binding. There is no legal obligation to teach students gender equality.
Zoom Image
Teresa Martínez Acosta is Minister of Children and Youth
Photo: Mayeli Villalba / DER SPIEGEL
The latest dispute is about EU funds that are once again intended to help reform the education system. The evangelical pastor Miguel Ortigoza, one of the loudest voices in the country, wants to block it, because he sees it as an "attack on the sovereignty of Paraguay". International organizations or the EU wanted to impose their globalist agenda on the country, undermining Paraguay's culture. In Paraguay, parents still have authority over their children, can decide what they learn – and the plans for sex education would disrupt the "harmonious development of the child". Anyone who distributes condoms and informs teenagers about sex should not be surprised if they become pregnant. Ortigoza goes in and out of the Ministry of Education; he represents, among other things, an organization that advocates for "parental rights," another cipher of the new right. At the same time, he is the representative of the Capitol Ministries in Paraguay, a Christian lobby organization in the USA.
Women's rights activists in Paraguay report threats, scratched cars and secretly taken photos. "We are taking steps backwards instead of making progress," complains child protection activist Norma Benítez. There were »speech bans«. Teacher Ana Portillo Martínez says: "I can't explain to my students how the world works if I'm not allowed to address things like patriarchy, gender roles and discrimination." It is a system that encourages abuse.
In fact, in hardly any other country in the world is it so difficult to talk to survivors of sexual violence.
María Amarilla, now 20, is one of the very few who talks. The young woman with the big brown eyes is now studying medicine in Buenos Aires and is connected via video. At the age of eleven, she was abused and threatened by her uncle. For years, she didn't tell anyone about it. "I didn't know it was wrong," she says.
At school, she had learned next to nothing about sex education. A "complete lack of information," she says. Only the evangelical organization Decisiones had appeared for an interview. In it, they were told that women who have abortions are criminals. It was a lot about the sins of girls, about what clothes they wear. In addition, they were given a paper to sign on which they promised to remain virgins until marriage.
At the age of fifteen, Amarilla confided in her mother, who assisted her with the complaint. In the small town, everyone soon knew about her case. Parts of the family had reproached her, asked what she had wanted at such a late time in her uncle's house. The perpetrator spent about two years in prison. "Now he's been free and happy for a long time," says Amarilla. He goes to birthdays and family celebrations, she doesn't. Nevertheless, she does not regret breaking her silence. "It was important to me to encourage other girls and also to warn them against him," she says.
In a central square in Asunción stands the sculpture of a huge fetus with closed eyes and an umbilical cord protruding from the round abdomen, around it a kind of ring that symbolizes the uterus. "The miracle of life" is written underneath. After Paraguay, other countries in Latin America have now introduced a registry for unborn babies, including Chile. According to openDemocracy, the corresponding legal texts are apparently adapted by copy-and-paste. "Paraguay is small and unimportant, no one is looking," says Moragas, a human rights activist, "but what has worked here can be transferred to other countries."
In a poor satellite town in the south of Asunción, the day is coming to an end, the mosquitoes are becoming more aggressive. Aleli Talavera, 26, steps outside the door of the unplastered house where she lives and for which she is a little ashamed. She wears sweatpants; her face looks tired as she gathers a few buckets and old plastic chairs to sit on. She laughs, a little too loud, will become quieter and quieter in conversation.
At the age of 16, she became pregnant by her boyfriend at the time, and the religious family reacted indignantly. She was taken to an institution for girls, against her will. There she was able to eat for free and learned how to change diapers and wash babies. She has a single photo from that time, on it a smiling girl's face and a huge belly in a blue dress.
When her son was one month old, Talavera had to leave the house. She went back to her mother, where she still lives. The child's father never wanted to see her son. "I couldn't live the life I wanted," she says. Her future had become darker and harsher due to the pregnancy.
She used tolike mathematics at school, actually wanted to study, preferably pharmacy. She hopes that it will work out somehow. "I need this, for myself," she says quietly. Her hands play with a hair tie. But at least she has only one child.
Every morning she gets up at half past four, walks to the bus stop, drives to the city, where she works for a cleaning company. At six o'clock she starts cleaning, at the Ministry of Education. She comes home around 17 p.m. The company, she says, only pays her the official minimum wage of 2,530,000 Guarani, about 320 euros, on paper, but in reality they give her about a third less.
"I don't have any other options," she says.
She would like to make it possible for her son to play football, but she cannot afford the club fee. She does not receive any help from the state.
This article is part of the Global Society project
AreaWhat is the Global Society project?expand
Under the title "Global Society", reporters from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe report on injustices in a globalized world, socio-political challenges and sustainable development. The reports, analyses, photo series, videos and podcasts are published in a separate section in SPIEGEL's foreign department. The project is long-term and is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
A detailed FAQ with questions and answers about the project can be found here.
AreaWhat does the funding look like in concrete terms?expand
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has been supporting the project since 2019 for an initial period of three years with a total sum of around 2.3 million euros – around 760,000 euros per year. In 2021, the project was extended by almost three and a half years until spring 2025 under the same conditions.
AreaIs the journalistic content independent of the foundation?expand
Yes. The editorial content is created without the influence of the Gates Foundation.
AreaDo other media have similar projects?expand
Yes. Major European media outlets such as »The Guardian« and »El País« have set up similar sections on their news pages with the support of the Gates Foundation with »Global Development« and »Planeta Futuro« respectively.
SectionHave there already been similar projects at SPIEGEL?expand
In recent years, SPIEGEL has already implemented two projects with the European Journalism Centre (EJC) and the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: the "Expedition ÜberMorgen" on global sustainability goals and the journalistic refugee project "The New Arrivals", which has resulted in several award-winning multimedia reports on the topics of migration and flight.
AreaWhere can I find all publications on the Global Society?
The pieces can be found at SPIEGEL on the topic page Global Society .