Parents of a 13-year-old girl allegedly raped by her father’s colleague have faced court in a battle for the right for their daughter to abort her baby.
The teenager’s pregnancy was only discovered after her parents took her to a doctor to seek treatment for obesity, the BBC reported.
Now at 30-weeks pregnant, the girl from Mumbai must be granted permission from the Supreme Court, as Indian law only allows terminations after 20-weeks if the mother’s life is in danger.
A colleague of the girl’s father is alleged to have raped the teenager and has been arrested.
Parents of a 13-year-old girl allegedly raped by her father’s colleague have faced court in a battle for the right for their daughter to abort her baby (stock image)
India has a grim record of sexual assaults on minors, with 20,000 cases of rape or sexual assaults reported in 2015, according to government data
Mumbai-based gynaecologist Dr Nikhil Datar told the BBC: ‘[The girl’s parents] suspected she had a thyroid problem or some other medical condition because she was gaining weight.
‘The scan showed that she was 27 weeks pregnant so I informed the police.’
The doctor has recommended her child is aborted as her pelvis is not fully developed and having a child will cause her ‘physical and mental trauma’.
Her case comes after a ten-year-old girl, who was impregnated after being repeatedly raped by her uncle, gave birth to a child earlier this month.
Pleas for an abortion were rejected by India’s Supreme Court late in late July because it was deemed to not be in the interest ‘of the child or the live foetus’.
Her baby was delivered through a C-section at a hospital in Chandigarh – in the northern state of Punjab – and weighed 4lbs 8oz, according to NDTV.
The girl was not aware that she was going to hospital to deliver a baby but was instead told by her parents that she needed an operation to remove a stone from her stomach.
The 10-year-old girl was raped in the northern city of Chandigarh in the Punjab
Her father has asked that the child be made available for adoption.
The girl’s parents discovered their child was pregnant after she complained to them about stomach pains.
She later told her mother that her maternal uncle had raped her six times over a period of several months when he visited the family in their home.
Chief Justice of India Justice J. S. Khehar
On July 18, the family sought legal permission to have the pregnancy terminated and the uncle was arrested, but their initial appeal to Chandigarh court was refused.
They then went to the supreme court in Delhi but – when the girl was 32-weeks pregnant – that appeal was also refused.
The Chief Justice J S Khehar-headed bench denied the plea of the girl by citing a ‘grave threat’ to her life.
‘The medical board is satisfied that it will neither be in the interest of the child or the live foetus which is approximately 32 weeks old to order abortion,’ said the bench. A similar case earlier this year in the northern Indian state of Haryana saw a 10-year-old be granted permission to abort her baby after being allegedly raped by her stepfather.