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10-year-old rape victim gives birth to premature baby
The 10-year-old mother had only been told by her family that she had a stone in her stomach, hence the protruding belly.
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The Indian rape victim gave birth to a baby weighing 2.5kg (5.5lb) through Caesarean section in Chandigarh at 09:22 (03:52 GMT) according to the BBC.
It is reported that the girl is not aware that she has given birth because her family only told her that her belly was protruding after having a big stone in her stomach.
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The girl was allegedly raped several times in the past seven months by her uncle, who has been arrested.
Her pregnancy was discovered in mid-July when she complained of stomach ache and her parents took her to the hospital.
However, a local court in Chandigarh turned down the abortion plea on the grounds that the pregnancy was too grown to be aborted. The Court’s decision follows a similar report by doctors that terminating the pregnancy would be “too risky”
According to the BBC report, the parents of the 10-year-old girl, who said from the beginning that they did not want to have anything to do with the baby, did not even look at the newborn.
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An official said the infant will be looked after by the child welfare committee until she is put up for adoption.
Meanwhile, the 10-year-old mother is expected to remain in the hospital for up to 10 days.
Rape and other sexual violence especially against children are very rampant in India.
Below are some figures from official sources to that effect.
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The scale of abuse in India
A child under 16 is raped every 155 minutes, a child under 10 every 13 hours
More than 10,000 children were raped in 2015
240 million women living in India were married before they turned 18
53.22% of children who participated in a government study reported some form of sexual abuse
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50% of abusers are known to the child or are "persons in trust and care-givers"
Sources: Indian government, Unicef
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