Teodora del Carmen Vasquez

Teodora del Carmen Vásquez (born 1986) is a Salvadoran civil rights activist who campaigns against gender-based violence against women. At the age of 24 and nine months pregnant, she suffered a miscarriage at work, which led to her arrest and conviction. She is co-founder of the association (Spanish for Free Women of El Salvador).

Early life Del Carmen was born into a rural farming family in the department of Ahuachapán in El Salvador, near the border with Guatemala. Life in this remote region was marked by poverty and a lack of access to basic services.

Imprisonment Before her imprisonment in 2007, del Carmen worked in a school cafeteria in the capital city of San Salvador to provide financial support for her son Ángel Gabriel and her parents.

No investigation was ever conducted, nor was any evidence ever presented. Her phone, which could have served as evidence of her calls for help, was taken from her. During her imprisonment in Ilopango Women's Prison, del Carmen used her personal fate as a starting point for her activism and became a voice for women's rights. In 2018, the year of her release Vásquez sought out fellow activists across the country. Together with 16 other women who had been imprisoned for obstetric emergencies, she founded a women's collective that became the legally constituted organization Mujeres Libres de El Salvador in 2022. Vásquez considers the approval of this organization alone to be progress in social development.

Awards and legacy In 2018, Vásquez was nominated and awarded the Per Anger Prize for Human Rights by the Swedish section of Amnesty International. The citation read: "Teodora del Carmen Vásquez is being honored for her fight for women's sexual and reproductive health rights in El Salvador [...]. She has transformed personal pain into a force that gives support and hope to many girls and women in her home country. Continuing the fight after ten years in prison is not only extraordinary, it also requires great courage."

The 2021 documentary film , tells the story of Teodora del Carmen Vásquez and 16 other women who were imprisoned for obstetric emergencies. In it, they describe their cases and talk about sexual and reproductive rights. The film was initially censored by the government, but was eventually allowed to be shown to people aged 18 and over. By 2022, the film had been shown at almost 60 festivals.